Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

by Kaja Foglio

  “Really?” Agatha was doubtful.

  “Oh, yes! Why, back when I was conducting research at the University, I always insisted that the children be allowed out of their containment tanks for Christmas!”

  Everyone in the room stared at him.

  Mittlemind flushed with embarrassment and waved a hand. “Oh please, what do you all take me for? I’m obviously not talking about the Control Group!”

  The other prisoners relaxed, chuckling.

  Agatha stared at Fraulein Snaug, who dimpled into a nostalgic smile. “I love Christmas,” she sighed.

  “All right! Enough!” Agatha shouted. “I don’t have time for this!” She pointed to the prisoners. “You lot stay here and keep an eye on things.” She waved a hand around the dilapidated lab. “You can clean up a bit while you’re at it. And don’t go wandering off or the Castle may get testy.”

  “It’s true…I sometimes do, you know.”

  The prisoners glanced helplessly at one another. Mezzasalma spoke for them all. “But for cleaning, we’ll need to get squeegees and mops and…” he shrugged, “…and minions.”

  Diaz nodded vigorously. “Oh yes! There must be minions. Although Doctor Mittlemind does share…” at this he and Mezzasalma bowed slightly to the genial doctor, who nodded in appreciation, “…but if you expect this to be done while we Sparks are disassembling ‘The Lion’…”76

  Agatha paused. “No, don’t disassemble it yet…Guard it, and get all the bits together so that I can have a look at them later.”

  “My lady,” the Castle wheedled, “I really don’t like—”

  Agatha cut it off. “Look, you can just squash anyone who actually tries to activate it, okay? Other than me, of course.”

  “But I still—”

  “HETERODYNE!” Agatha screamed.

  The Castle gave in. “Yes, Mistress.”

  “That’s better.” Agatha turned back to the prisoners and pointed to Zola’s remaining Tall Men. “You will assist the professors. If you survive, you’ll be free to go.” The men looked dubious.

  Agatha continued. “Without Pinkie here.” With a sigh of relief, the men picked up brooms and got to work. Agatha nodded. “Professor Tiktoffen? You’ll come with me. From what the Castle has told me, you probably know this place better than anyone.”

  The professor grimaced. “Enough to know that I’d rather stay here.”

  Agatha looked interested. “Permanently?”

  Tiktoffen stood up and dusted his hands together. “I’ll get my notes.”

  Agatha turned to Zola, who had once again pillowed Gil’s head on her lap. “We’re going. Get him on his feet.”

  Zola gave her an imploring look. “But—you can’t make him walk around the Castle like this! It’s dangerous out there. He’s hurt! He’s not even coherent!”

  “Making him the only one here who won’t give me an argument. It’ll pass, but I’ll take it while I’ve got it. Now get him up.”

  Gil stirred. “Um…Zola? Did Professor Belette get away? We’ve got to stop him before he steals the Moulin Rouge.”77

  Agatha ignored him. “We’re going,” she told Zola. Then she called to the room: “All right! Now, did I forget anyone?”

  “Oh, yes,” hissed a chillingly familiar voice from behind her.

  It was Von Pinn. Agatha stiffened, then, with preternatural calmness, turned to face her.

  The construct hadn’t changed. She towered over Agatha, blonde hair pulled back hard into a severe bun, a ruby monocle covering her malevolent, inhuman left eye.

  “If you’d wanted to kill me,” Agatha said, “you could have done it ten times over.”

  Von Pinn’s mouth twitched, briefly revealing beast-sharp teeth. Perhaps she had changed, somewhat, after all. She seemed…almost subdued.

  “I am not here to kill you. You are the Heterodyne girl. I must keep you…safe.”

  This was too much. A wave of fury fueled by grief, stress, and the Spark washed through Agatha. “Safe? From my parents? You tore Adam and Lilith to shreds while I watched!” Agatha’s voice rose to a maniacal scream. “DIE!” She raised the death ray and fired it, point blank, blasting a hole through the wall in front of her.

  “Tsk.” Von Pinn was, somehow, behind Agatha. The construct lifted Agatha into the air effortlessly, pinning her arms to her sides. Agatha could feel the pointed claws digging into her skin through their protective gloves. “I see I must also teach you manners,” Von Pinn said.

  She studied Agatha’s face and a slight moue of puzzlement crossed her face. “You are…genuinely upset about the deaths of the constructs back on Castle Wulfenbach. I am surprised to find you so sentimental.”

  Agatha thrashed uselessly. She was vaguely aware of the Castle’s voice, making conciliatory noises, but she was too enraged to listen. “Those constructs were my parents!”

  An expression of regret stole across Von Pinn’s face. “You know as well as I that they were not. They were merely expendable caretakers. As, in many ways, am I.

  “But I have waited over two hundred years to fulfill my purpose. My beloved King charged me with the solemn duty of protecting you.” Von Pinn gave Agatha a brief shake. “He was a romantic fool in many ways, but I can not—” Another shake. “Will not—disobey him.”

  “I don’t want your protection,” Agatha snarled. “You stay away from me or I will find a way to kill you!”

  Infuriatingly, Von Pinn smiled. “Ah, that is where it becomes… interesting.” She made a low sound in her throat. “Truly, I serve too many masters. My creator did not charge me with your protection. My creator’s last orders to me were to keep you ‘safe.’ He meant ‘safe for those around you.’ He knew what you were. He knew what would happen if you were not watched. I once thought I could render you harmless by killing you, and still ‘protect’ you by guarding your tomb…”

  Agatha was still furious. Her struggles had done nothing. All she could do was listen as Von Pinn continued.

  “Sadly, due to the interference of my last mistress—may her bones burn green—I am instead compelled to defend your unworthy life with my own.”

  Agatha’s eyes narrowed. Her fingers found the trigger of the death ray that she still clutched in one hand. She couldn’t see it, held as she was. “Really.” She said. “You’re prepared to die to protect me.”

  “Whether I want to or not,” Von Pinn said.

  Agatha grinned nastily down at her. “Fine. Then now’s your chance.” As the Castle howled in protest, she pulled the trigger on the death ray, and a large circle of floor boiled away beneath Von Pinn’s feet.

  “Truly you are your mother’s child,” Von Pinn shrieked as she flung Agatha away from her. Her voice grew fainter as she tumbled away into the depths of Castle Heterodyne, screaming with rage.

  Agatha hit the floor in an ungraceful roll, coming to a painful stop against one of the stone lab benches. Professor Tiktoffen and Snaug were at her side instantly, helping her to her feet. “Are…are you all right, my lady?”

  Agatha rubbed her left shoulder as she peered into the hole that she had created. Neither Von Pinn nor the bottom of the shaft could be seen. The blast had cut a perfect hole through floor after floor of the Castle below them. Even as Agatha watched, the final bit of illumination provided by the molten edges of burnt stone faded back into darkness.

  “That was hardly necessary, my lady,” the Castle complained. “I can assure you that Mistress Von Pinn poses you no threat.”

  Agatha glanced back at the hole she had made. No wonder the Castle was upset. “Is—is she still alive?”

  The Castle took a moment to answer. “An interesting question. I do not know.”

  “How deep does this thing go?”

  “Deeper than The Great Movement Chamber, which is as far down as I know. Also, you have now damaged several of my systems. By some miracle, you hit nothing essential, but I am still fond of them.”

  Agatha nodded. “Ah. I’m sorry about that. No more d
eath ray then.”

  “Thank you,” said the Castle.

  “It’s nearly out of power anyway,” she told it.

  “Such a shame.”

  Agatha turned to Tiktoffen. “And now, we are getting out of here before anybody else shows up.”

  Tiktoffen nodded enthusiastically. “I am completely in agreement with that plan.”

  Agatha turned toward Gil. She had rather expected him to say something about Von Pinn, or at least, well, would it kill him to compliment a girl’s death ray? But she saw now that he hadn’t been paying attention to anything that had been going on. In fact, he was still flat on his back.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked Zola. “That wound doesn’t look bad enough to keep him off his feet.

  “He won’t get up,” Zola said defensively, “and I can’t carry him.”

  Agatha took a closer look and bit her lip. Zola had bandaged the wound expertly. Gil’s skin was flushed and he was sweating. His breathing was deep but quicker than if he was simply resting.

  “Well he can’t stay here, especially if there’s something weird wrong with him.” He may not be much use like this, but at least I’ll have both sick idiots in one place, she thought.

  Gil was mumbling in French: “Sorry, Professor, my latest experiment ate my lecture notes.”

  He thinks he’s in Paris, does he? Agatha had an idea. She leaned down to shout in Gil’s ear. “Hey, Gil! All of Paris is about to go up in flames and Zola has her head caught in a bucket! Up and at ‘em, hero boy!”

  It worked. Gil’s eyelids fluttered and he jerked up into a sitting position. “A bucket?” He shook his head ruefully. “Again?” With a sigh, he swayed to his feet. “Okay, I’m comin.’”

  Agatha glanced at Zola’s expression of rage and nodded in satisfaction. “Yessss, I suspected as much.”

  When they had been walking for a while, Agatha looked up from the map of the Castle. She had borrowed it from Professor Tiktoffen and it was hand-drawn, much marked and tattered. She looked down the long, enclosed stone corridor, checked the map again, and nodded. She tapped the vellum with a fingertip. “We’re here. And…I’m afraid that the way we’re going is through one of these red marked areas.”

  Tiktoffen took his map and nodded matter-of-factly. “Ah. We are indeed in uncharted territory.” He carefully rolled the map back up and placed it in the satchel he carried. “I will scream like a little girl now,” he informed them.

  “Please don’t,” Agatha said.

  “No, no—I insist.”

  “Oh, do let him, Mistress,” the Castle said. “It’s very funny.”

  Zola interrupted them. “Are we anywhere near this medical lab of yours?” She glanced back, worry evident on her face. “Gil’s still pretty much out of it.”

  This was clear. Gil was ambling along the corridor as though he was enjoying a garden stroll. As Agatha watched, he approached an empty suit of armor and politely addressed it. “Pardonnez-moi, Monseiur, mais où est la catastrophe?”

  “And what is that noise?” Zola asked.

  Agatha had been trying to calculate their best route back to the lab and Tarvek. When Zola spoke, she realized that there was a noise, and it was growing louder. A terrible banging and clonging noise, like a half-full water tank being dragged fast behind a team of oxen.

  A spiked ball of steel, easily the height of two men, came hurtling around a far bend in the corridor. It rumbled toward them, apparently under its own power.

  Agatha stared at it in astonishment and asked no one in particular: “Why do I even have one of those?”

  Tiktoffen shrugged. “I’d always wondered where that thing went on Tuesdays.”

  Zola stared at the onrushing ball and then screamed for help. “GILLLLL!”

  This jolted Gil from his distracted mood and he snapped into action. He leapt forward, scooped Zola into his arms and without breaking stride, ran directly toward the ball. Agatha’s heart stopped as she watched. There was no way around. With its spikes, the ball filled the corridor neatly from side to side.

  Fortunately, the hallway was higher than it was wide. With Zola shrieking in his ear, Gil spun and jumped towards the wall. Hitting it, he instantly pushed off and bounced towards the other side of the corridor, then back again. As he made his highest leap, the spikes of the ball swept past centimeters below his feet. As the ball rolled on, Gil bounced them back to the floor.

  As his feet touched the ground, Gil blinked with the look of a man awakening from a particularly absorbing daydream. “Wait. Back there…” He spun in place and watched the ball crashing away down the corridor. “Was that…Agatha?”

  Zola tightened her arms around Gil’s neck and stared at the twisted wreckage of Agatha’s death ray, scattered across the floor where the ball had passed. “Oh dear,” she said breathlessly, “How tragic! I guess my Castle is even more dangerous than I’d imagined!”

  “MY Castle!” Agatha’s voice rang out from above. Gil nearly dropped Zola as Agatha drifted down towards them. Professor Tiktoffen was clutching frantically at the arm she had slung around his chest. With her other hand, she held tightly to a small device that looked like another of her little pocket clanks. As she was about to touch down, the little clank burst with a loud crack, and everyone ducked as a barrage of short propellers ricocheted off the walls and into the darkness.

  As he ducked, Gil set Zola on her feet and covered her head with his arms. When the clattering died down, he raised his head. “My Castle,” Agatha repeated, glaring at Zola. “And don’t you forget it.”

  Gil beamed at her happily. “Agatha! What are you doing in Paris?” Agatha just looked at him. “Are you going to Professor Goodwin’s freestyle reanimation demonstration?” A hopeful thought entered his head. “Afterwards, let’s get some coffee and—”

  Agatha grabbed hold of Gil’s shoulders and gave him an impatient shake. “No! You are coming straight to my lab so I can look you over properly!”

  Gil felt a blush work its way up his face. That had gone even better than he had hoped! “Wow. Really?”

  Agatha just looked at him. “Let’s go,” she said and stalked off.

  Gil started to follow her and ran the toe of his boot into the remains of the little clank. As the metal casing clanged across the floor, he looked around him. Suddenly, he had a realization. “Hey! This isn’t Paris!”

  Agatha blew out a sigh of relief and kept walking.

  “This is Castle Heterodyne!” Gil tried to catch up to Agatha, but Zola took his arm and lightly squeezed his shoulder. “OW!” Another memory surfaced. “And I got shot!”

  “Yes,” Zola said. “But don’t worry, I’m taking care of you.”

  Gil stared at her, glanced at Agatha as she hastened away, and then turned back to Zola. He felt he should make things clear right away. “Listen, about Agatha, you should know—”

  Zola waved a hand. “Oh, her. She’s taken us prisoner, you know.” Zola dropped her voice. “She’s been acting all crazy and violent and she talked mean to me.”

  Gil looked at her. “Well, you did try to kill her,” he reminded her. Zola rolled her eyes and snuggled in closer. A thought hit him. “But—she’s really mad, huh? Hmmm…” Agatha had a lot of reasons to be angry with him.

  The group continued on their way. Zola kept her arm locked with Gil’s, and Tiktoffen stopped frequently to check his maps and instruments.

  Agatha said nothing, staring fixedly ahead. Every so often, Agatha stole a look at Gil and Zola out of the corner of her eye. She could tell that Gil wanted to talk to her but she was not going to have any kind of conversation with him with Zola clinging to him like a newlywed.

  Agatha knew she wasn’t being completely fair to him. Back on Castle Wulfenbach, they had been friends, of a sort. They had worked together, fought slaver wasps together. He had believed in her. And, in the end, she had left him and lied to him. What was she going to say?

  Things might have continued this way but Professor Tiktoff
en cleared his throat and engaged Zola in consultation about the types of traps that might await them ahead. Zola had reluctantly released Gil’s arm and the two of them now paced on ahead.

  Gil glanced at Agatha’s profile and his breath caught. Here she was, less than a meter from him. Alive and whole and…if the firming of her jaw was any indication…extremely annoyed.

  He had to speak to her. Had to find out if she cared for him at all. He didn’t have much hope—all she had done was run from him. She had let him think she was dead, and she had pretty obviously never meant to see him again. But Zeetha had been encouraging, and the green-haired girl was her friend…

  By sheer force of will he opened his mouth. “So…” Gil coughed and tried again. “So, Aga—” Was he being too familiar? She wasn’t his lab assistant anymore. Gil switched gears. “Miss—um—” No, you idiot! She isn’t Miss Clay anymore!

  “Lady Heterodyne,” he said. She turned to look at him. Yes! This was working! And then the yawning chasm of conversation loomed bleakly before him. What to say? “I’m so glad you’re not dead?” Moronic! Of course you’re glad she isn’t dead! Who wouldn’t be glad about that? That’s patently obvious! Saying that would make you look like a fatuous simpleton! She’s smart! Say something smart! “So who’s this…sick…person?” Gil closed his eyes. People who pay attention in medical school call them “patients,” he reminded himself. Maybe she’ll—

  “The patient?”

  Gil died a thousand silent deaths while Agatha considered this.

  “He’s a…friend.”

  “A friend.”

  Agatha sighed. “Well, as long as I keep an eye on him, anyway.”

  “And…‘he’?” Gil couldn’t help himself. He tried to get a look at her face as she answered, but she kept walking just ahead of him, avoiding his gaze.

  “Yes. He’s sick and injured, and you’re a much better doctor than I am.”

  Gil felt gratified that she thought so. He also felt Zola clamping once again onto his arm. He almost screamed in frustration. This was the last thing he wanted. But he was torn. Zola was obviously in way over her head. If he pushed her away, she might break down altogether and that would just delay things more. He couldn’t run the risk. Surely Agatha would understand.