Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

by Kaja Foglio

  Gil waved a hand. “Oh, well—Sturmvoraus is a Prince. You know—traditional royalty…they’re all about succession, right? That’s why the dying thing is important.”

  “I guess.”

  “Well someone who’s been waiting twenty or thirty years to assume power doesn’t much like it when their predecessor goes and gets reanimated. So they’ve come up with all kinds of rules about that sort of thing. As far as the Fifty Families are concerned, once you’re dead, you’re dead. Even if someone zaps you back later.”

  Von Zinzer looked worried. “But, the Baron…there’s rumors that he’s….I mean, um…no offense, but…”

  Gil laughed. “None taken. My father doesn’t choose to play by their rules and they can’t make him.

  “But he knows them. And, every so often, some blueblood succumbs to the lure of resurrection and then desperately hopes no one ever finds out.” Gil lowered his voice conspiratorially. “But my father always does.”

  Von Zinzer nodded. “I’ll bet.”

  Gil held up a hand. “Hold that thought.” He opened a door and found Professor Tiktoffen stripping the last vestiges of spider silk off of Zola. “Ah! Professor! Zola! And how are you doing?” he asked cheerily.

  Tiktoffen waved a hand gummed with spider silk. “Very well, thank you! I’ve just managed to get the Lady…er…Zola loose!”

  Zola was livid. “Gil! Are you seriously going to—AAH!…and why is your shirt off?”

  Gil smiled and poured a small amount of Ichor into his hand. “Yes, yes. Now, I need you to test something for me!” He raised his hand and blew a cloud of powder at them just as Zola was drawing in a deep lungful of air. She and Tiktoffen collapsed to the ground.

  Zola began to snore gently. Gil nodded. “Still good.” He turned to von Zinzer. “—and, of course, my father believes that it’s best if we’re the only ones who find out.”

  Von Zinzer knew an implied threat when he heard one and accepted this one with remarkable equanimity. “Find out what, sir?”

  Gil nodded. “Good man.”

  _______________

  72 These suspicions were fully justified. These creatures are apparently a mutated form of louse (pediculus humanus gargantua heterodyne) sold throughout Mechanicburg as “Deep Fried Crunchy Castle Crabs.” By all accounts they are incredibly delicious, but no native of Mechanicsburg has ever been able to bring themselves to eat one.

  73 Agatha had no idea what she was in for. As the largest supplier of money, resources, and personnel in Europa, the Wulfenbach Empire received hundreds of proposals for insane schemes every day. What made it truly maddening was that all-too-often a scheme might be horrifying, insane, counter-intuitive…and the perfect solution for a current problem. Thus, Klaus insisted that every one of these ideas had to be fairly evaluated. It was challenging, infuriating, and occasionally dangerous work. The clerks assigned to the Department for the Containment of New Ideas were bureaucrats who regularly earned Hazard Pay.

  74 To a chronicler of the life of the Lady Heterodyne, the tragedy of the destruction that Doctor Merlot claims credit for cannot be overstated. Tarsus Beetle was evidently enough of a confidant of Barry Heterodyne that he was entrusted with his niece. Although historical records show that Barry was a prodigious diarist and notetaker, none exist after the date of the destruction of Castle Heterodyne up through his time in Beetleburg (which may have lasted as long as a year). It is not unreasonable to assume that any and all writing that he generated, which would certainly have covered or at least mentioned tangentially, where the brothers had been and what they had been doing since their disappearance, had been deposited with Dr. Beetle for safekeeping before Barry left town. So, in answer to Merlot’s rhetorical question, no—it was not particularly fair, but the Baron did not permit torture.

  75 Fra Pelagatti was an Abbot of the Corbettites, a monastic order based in Ireland. Whereas many orders raised a little pocket change by brewing up various alcoholic beverages, the Corbettites ran a railroad system that united Europa and was making inroads into Asia and the Middle East. While it welcomed and sheltered Sparks, the order also attracted quite a few of the overlooked mechanics, engineers, tinkerers, and self-taught inventors who were not Sparks but didn’t feel like working for the Wulfenbach Empire. The order gave them a home and a greater purpose. It also gave them access to tools, workshops, and large, dangerous things that went very fast.

  76 As it may be inferred, most Sparks have much in common with small children in that they may be cheerfully breaking the laws of physics one minute and be astonished that their room has not been cleaned in the next. For many Sparks, the most heinous part of being sentenced to Castle Heterodyne was that they were stripped of their minions and found that they were expected to do everything for themselves, from preparing their own meals, to seeing if a pair of wires are, in fact, live.

  77 This comment may explain a curious and heretofore unexplained incident when the famous cabaret briefly disappeared from its usual lot on the Boulevard de Clichy. A month later it was just as mysteriously returned, unharmed. No perpetrator or motive was ever revealed. The only evidence of the theft was a series of postcards sent to the Master of Paris showing the iconic structure standing in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Emperor’s Palace in the Forbidden City, the Kaaba in Mecca, and the Hofbrâuhaus in Munich.

  78 The Variegated Knife & Fork Spider (Theraphosidae Cultro Furca Mechanicsburg) is a species endemic to the Mechanicsburg Valley. Like many other spiders, it cocoons its victim, paralyzes them and injects them with eggs, which hatch into young that feed upon said victim’s liquefying, but still living, flesh. The difference is that the Knife and Fork Spider does this with impeccable table manners, which is why it was selected as the mascot for the Mechanicsburg Restaurant Association.

  79 Professor Tybalt Fauve, MD, PhD. Became renowned for his lecture series about esoteric diseases. One of his more memorable teaching aids was to randomly infect various members of the audience with some of the diseases that he was discussing in that session. Extra credit was awarded to students who could correctly diagnose these various illnesses (either in themselves or in others) before the lecture ended (or before the victim died, whichever came first). Due to the perversity of human nature, Professor Fauve’s lectures were always packed to capacity, which made things really interesting when he covered some of the more contagious pathogens.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Mechanicsburg: A thousand years old and crazy to the bone.”

  —Graffiti originally discovered on the Tower of the Doom Bell and subsequently adopted as an unofficial town motto.

  Gilgamesh strode back to the main room of the medical lab, von Zinzer at his heels.

  Von Zinzer was shaking his head. “…and it doesn’t bother you at all that her house even has all those big iron cages?”

  “Why should it?” Gil asked. “This way, even if Zola and Tiktoffen wake up, they’ll be completely out of the way while we work—”

  They froze in the doorway. Agatha stood in the center of the room with her back to them. She had found an old split-tail lab coat, gloves, and a pair goggles that sported an array of dials and special lenses. The lab coat had evidently seen some use—both arms appeared to have been burnt away to the shoulders. The machines that had been scattered about the room had been collected, partially disassembled, and hooked together into a huge installation centered around two heavy, ironbound medical tables. Pipes, cords, and machinery wound around everything, and alarmingly colored substances bubbled through twisted glass tubes. Little helper clanks like the ones Agatha had left infesting his labs back on Castle Wulfenbach scrambled everywhere.

  Tarvek was strapped to the left hand table, his skin a softly glowing teal. A complex helmet covered with lights and meters hid most of his head, with only his mouth showing.

  Violetta was dangling overhead, her knees thrown over an exposed beam. As she connected a final cable, the entire bank of machinery shuddered to life. More lights
began to glow. Agatha checked a dial and then nodded. Violetta dropped, spun elegantly in midair, and landed lightly on her feet.

  Agatha turned and saw Gil and von Zinzer. Her face lit up. “Ha! There you are!” She sounded delighted, energized, and terrifying, all at once. Gil felt his heart rise in his chest and try to soar away. She was glorious—an angel of creation. He had known she was a strong Spark, but here she was, practically crackling with power. And the way she had rearranged everything while he was gone was nothing short of miraculous.80

  “Get on the slab.” She pointed to the empty table. “I want to get to work!” The harmonics in her voice sent thrills down his spine, and Gil just stood where he was, awestruck.

  Von Zinzer gave him a sharp poke in the small of the back. “Spooky girl’s all yours, pal.”

  Gil pulled himself together. Agatha took his arm and drew him forward. He examined the machinery, and felt a little disappointed. “Is there even anything left for me to do?” he asked.

  “Sure! Lots! Don’t worry,” Agatha told him. “But we need to move quickly…and you were right! There’s tons of great stuff here, if you’re willing to try non-traditional methods!”

  “I helped! I made some suggestions, too!” chimed the Castle.

  “Oh. Good.” Gil wondered what kind of suggestions the Castle would think up. Best not to dwell on it…he stopped to check the instruments attached to Tarvek.

  “I see, yes, he’s getting worse,” Gil told Agatha. “We’ll have to start the Si Vales right away and work on the rest as we go.”

  “Well, you didn’t want it to be boring,” she reminded him.

  Gil turned to the empty table. “Strap me in, then.”

  Agatha began the process of connecting him with the rest of the array, and Gil couldn’t help himself. He began to fuss. “Um…did you connect all the feedback switches?” he asked her.

  “All except the cardiac sequence.”

  “Ah. Yes. Good. Er…did you key the pump sequence to stutter?”

  Agatha swung a control panel around to show him. “Two-two on the cranium. Three-seven on the extremities. Four-five on the torso.”

  Gil nodded reluctantly. “Right. Perfect.” A set of arms equipped with large steel needles swung down and positioned themselves above his arms. Large glass bottles rotated into position.

  “Ah! The whole brass infusion thing! How did you solve—” Agatha placed a gloved finger across his lips.

  “Gil. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  Gil nodded. “Well, of course. But I am letting you strap me into a refurbished pile of torture machine parts and then mix me up with a guy who’s full of virulent pathogens and no brains. So, of course I’ll want to be extra careful about the variables that I know could kill me.”

  Agatha smiled sweetly and bent toward him. She touched her nose to his.

  “Very wise. But I am not going to let you die,” she said. She then reconsidered this statement. “…Or at least…If I do, not for very long. Now—good luck.”

  “What?”

  And then she kissed him. It was a light, unsatisfying brush of her lips against his.

  “Don’t worry, that wasn’t for good-bye,” Agatha said matter-of-factly. She lowered the apparatus over Gil’s face. A thought surfaced in his brain.

  “Hey!” he called to Agatha. “Did you kiss him too?”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” she said, ensuring that Gil would worry about it quite a bit.

  When von Zinzer and Violetta had scrambled to their stations, Agatha took a deep breath and threw the first switch. “Gil,” she called, “Give me a count back from…from eighty-three!”

  Gil began: “Eighty-three. Eighty-two…”

  “Violetta,” Agatha called. “Start the bellows!”

  With a grunt, Violetta threw her weight onto a leather strap and began pulling on an accordion-like mechanism that towered over her. She released it and it pulled back up. She pulled it down again, and then, with a cough, it began moving on its own, sending great waves of air through several large pipes.

  “Seventy-nine…”

  “Von Zinzer! Get the resonance accelerators up to speed!”

  With a grimace, von Zinzer stooped and began to turn the great crank. “I hate this stuff. Hate it, hate it, hate it…” He chanted through gritted teeth, in perfect time with his movements.

  “Seventy-seven…”

  Agatha raised her hand to a massive knife-switch and addressed Gil. “Okay. This’ll probably hurt a little,” she said.

  “It’ll hurt a lot!” Gil corrected her, still counting. “Seventy-five…”

  Agatha threw the switch. Gil screamed as he was wreathed in a glittering web of electricity.

  “Gil! Keep counting!” Agatha shouted.

  He kept going: “S…seventy-three…”

  The electricity now enveloped Tarvek, who simply spasmed once and then went limp.

  “Seventy…”

  A high-pitched ululation filled the air as a pressure-relief valve burst open, jetting steam into the air. The generators began shuddering as the pitch of their whine continued to cycle upwards.

  “Tarvek’s reading are going crazy,” Violetta called out nervously. “They’re jumping all over the place!”

  “Good,” Agatha called back. She wrenched open a shunt, and a container of boiling red liquid drained away into a set of glass pipes that sent it flowing through the system.

  “Sixty-seven…”

  “Wulfenbach’s readings are crashing,” von Zinzer yelled. “Everything is in the red! We should hit the cutoff!”

  “NO!” Agatha shouted back. She was hunched over the control board, her thick gloves smoking whenever they touched one of the crackling controls. “This must work! Increase power!”

  Von Zinzer stared at her. “Increase—No! Are you crazy?” He thought a moment and began throwing switches one by one. “Oh wait, of course you are,” he grumbled.

  “Sixty-three…”

  Violetta paused.

  “Sixty-two…”

  The voice… it wasn’t coming from Wulfenbach…

  “Sixty-one…”

  Or rather, it wasn’t coming from just Wulfenbach.

  “Sixty…”

  With a shudder, Violetta realized that the countdown was coming from both Gil and Tarvek simultaneously.

  “Fifty…nine…”

  Violetta now saw Gil’s skin shift to a royal blue. “Lady Heterodyne!”

  The lightning crackled around the two prone men as they changed from blue to purple. “Yes!” Agatha pounded her fist upon the board in triumph. “Yes! They’re in synch!”

  A tug at an overhead chain, and a pair of enormous glass globes encrusted with tubes and cables dropped down, their apertures pointed directly at the hearts of the two men on the tables below them. A light began to glow within them.

  “Fifty-seven…”

  “Cover your eyes!” Agatha pulled down her goggles and grabbed a large red switch. “I’m releasing the lightning!” With a shriek of exultation she slammed the switch home. Everywhere the lights dimmed and—

  A small spark cracked briefly at the end of the tube nearest Gil and Tarvek’s chests.

  “Fifty-Five…”

  Von Zinzer looked surprised. “Huh. I expected a bit more… kaboom.”

  “Oh dear,” the Castle said.

  “No!” Agatha screamed. “NO!” She stared upwards. “What’s happened? Where is my lightning?”

  “Ah…This is very embarrassing,” the Castle answered. “I do not know.”

  “You don’t know?” All around them, the machinery was beginning to wind down. Some smoothly, some to the accompaniment of small internal explosions and the smell of burnt insulation.

  “I will attempt to execute a quick Dio-Gnostic routine,” the Castle said. Its voice sounded detached—as though they were hearing some mechanically prerecorded message. “In the meantime, please enjoy this musical selection: Divertimento for String a
nd Garrucha.” There followed what Agatha guessed to be the melodic sounds of cats being swung from the Castle walls by violin strings.

  “What? No!” she howled, tearing off her goggles. “I’m talking to you!” Von Zinzer put a hand on her shoulder. “Forget it,” he advised her. “It’s locked up until it finishes whatever it is that it’s doing.”

  “It does this a lot?” Agatha roared. “How long does it take?”

  Von Zinzer shrugged. “Dunno. You should ask Professor Tiktoffen. I do know that it’s been happening more and more lately.” He listened to the music with a critical ear. “This one probably won’t take too long. Now, if you’d gotten an opera…”

  “NO!” Agatha stalked away and stared at the gently smoking slabs. “We haven’t got time! Gil and Tarvek are fully integrated!” She threw a switch and the machinery covering the young men’s faces retracted. Gil was unconscious. “It wasn’t supposed to last this long! The strain on Gil’s system will be enormous!”

  “Don’t panic,” Tarvek said. Agatha gasped and turned. From his slab, he looked back at her with the clear, intelligent expression she remembered from Sturmhalten. “We’re actually doing fairly well.” He glanced about at the clamps holding him down. “After all, I’d expect Gil to mess things up. On the other hand, much to my surprise, my brain doesn’t appear to be inside an otter, so I suppose I can’t really complain.”

  Agatha set his glasses on his nose and mussed his hair affectionately. “Listen to you. You sound like Gil.” She smiled. He frowned.

  Agatha continued. “Well, good. That means there’s still a chance this can work.”

  “Agatha—” Tarvek began, but she cut him off.

  “Shh. You sit tight. I’ve got to have a look at the lightning generators.” She tapped the tip of his nose with one finger and moved off.

  After a minute, von Zinzer and Violetta wandered over to stand by him.

  “So…sounds risky. What do you think? Should I disconnect you?” Violetta asked.

  “No!” Tarvek said. “At this stage it would kill me!”