Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

by Kaja Foglio

  “That was him?” Tarvek rolled his eyes. “Sweet Science, he must love this place.”

  “And what is not to love?” the Castle said smugly.

  Gil and Tarvek remained silent, sipping their drinks. Finally, Gil spoke. “So you’re involved in this whole ‘Storm King’ farce, are you?”

  Tarvek looked guilty. “Well, yes, a bit. Did Agatha—”

  “No. Your tame Heterodyne girl told me all about it…and she was a bit of a surprise, let me tell you.”

  Tarvek clutched his forehead and groaned. “She is not my tame Heterodyne girl. This whole debacle was not my plan. Mine was much better.

  “And even though a real Heterodyne girl appeared, they panicked and rushed into it anyway! I swear, those fools couldn’t topple the corrupt government of a sandcastle.”

  Gil shrugged. “Well, what with Agatha’s performance in Sturmhalten, I can see how they thought it was now or never.”

  “So this girl’s in the Castle, is she? What’s she like? Will she be any danger to Agatha?”

  Gil stared at him. “Wait—you don’t know?”

  “Well, no. I’ve never met her. I said this wasn’t my plan.”

  “Um, well, let’s just say I don’t think much of this Storm King guy’s taste.”

  Tarvek was stung. “Oh, really? That’s encouraging, considering the kind of girls you preferred in Paris.”

  Gil raised his eyebrows. “True. They didn’t like to play dress-up much at all.”

  “That’s because they were hardly ever dressed!” Tarvek sniped.

  “Jealous?” Gil answered.

  Agatha interrupted them. “It’s time to go. We’d better not leave Professor Tiktoffen and Pinkie here, they’ll have to come with us. Where are they?”

  Tarvek was surprised. “They’re here here? Both of them?”

  “Yeah. I knocked them out with some Ichor of Somnia.” Gil selected a small jar from a shelf and tossed it to von Zinzer. “Here. Wave this under their noses. It’ll wake them up fast.”

  Von Zinzer eyed the jar suspiciously. “What is it?”

  “Vitrium of Mustard. It’s harmless enough, just don’t try sniffing it yourself, it’s really pungent.”

  He was too late. Von Zinzer had opened the jar and taken a sniff. He shrieked and clapped the lid back on, his eyes watering furiously. Violetta followed him out the door and just managed to keep him from walking himself into a wall. Together, they went to fetch the prisoners.

  When they had gone, the Castle made a strange sound. “My lady! There is something moving within my walls. It…it appears to be heading this way, and it seem to be…quite large.”

  Agatha looked at the door they had come in. “Seems large? You can’t tell?”

  “No. It is…amorphous, I think. I cannot halt, destroy, or contain it…and…and…it tickles!”

  “How close is it?”

  The wall next to them cracked and a portrait fell to the ground.

  “Very close!”

  With a rumble, the wall collapsed into fragments, revealing a dark space. Within, something moved. It stepped out into the light. One large, central eye blinked.

  “Oh!” Agatha looked down with astonishment. “It’s one of my little clanks.”

  Gil and Tarvek bent to examine it. Gil grinned. “Yes! It’s the one our people found at Sturmhalten. I activated it earlier and it actually came to help you, just like I told it to! It’s actually a very smart little—OW!” Gill yelped as the diminutive clank lashed out and punched him in the nose.

  Tarvek chortled. “You’re right! It is really smart! So—this is one of the ones she built in Sturmhalten, eh? I helped with some of those, you know—YEEE!”

  The clank had found a mallet and brought it down hard on Tarvek’s toes.

  “I see it remembers you, too,” Gil said with a smirk.

  “That’s enough of that,” Agatha told it sternly. “Stop picking on my—er—my experimental subjects.”

  The small clank managed to look contrite.

  There was a sound behind them. One of the pocket-watch clanks already in the room had wandered over. It had evidently just dropped a wrench and was now staring fixedly at the newcomer, which was staring back.

  “Er, my lady?” the Castle asked nervously. “Just how many of those have you built?”

  “Oh,” Gil said with interest, “that must be another primary. It looks a lot like the other one, doesn’t it?”

  Suddenly both clanks began to chime angrily. From the lab behind them and out of the hole in the wall, swarms of small clanks poured into the hall. They paused, each group assessing the other, and then flowed towards each other, apparently eager for battle.

  Agatha brought her foot down hard between the two tiny generals, the sole of her boot ringing against the stone. She flung out her hands. “STOP!” she boomed. “I am your creator and I command you to stop!”

  For a moment, the two primary clanks stared upward. Then, in unison, they brought their heavy tools down upon her foot. Agatha shrieked and began hopping about, swearing like a professor with tenure. The two primary clanks ignored her and leapt at each other, doing their best to disassemble one another.

  Tarvek watched critically. “Seriously. Does that ever work?”

  Gil shook his head. “No. She is ahead of the game, in that she didn’t try it on a giant wolverine/snake thing with poisoned tusks.”

  Tarvek nodded. “Oooh, yeah. I heard about that.”

  “You’re lucky. I got it on my shoes,” said Gil.

  Tarvek nudged Gil. “Hey. Look at that. The other ones obeyed her.”

  It was true. The remaining clank armies had frozen in place and seemed content to watch the glorious single combat of their leaders.

  Gil stroked his chin. “Another difference between the first and second generation.”

  Tarvek looked at him inquiringly.

  Gil continued. “You don’t think Agatha built all those, do you? I watched her working back on Castle Wulfenbach. She builds some of them herself, like those two there. Then they go and build more, and so on.”

  Tarvek was impressed. “Oh. She didn’t tell me that, but it explains a lot. When I was working with her in Sturmhalten, I was kind of distracted…”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet.” Gil scowled. “Anyway, the secondaries build tertiaries and so on, but subsequent generations get simpler and more crude. It’s like the later ones just don’t have…”

  Tarvek stared at Gil wide-eyed. “The Spark,” he said. “She’s built a machine with the Spark?”

  Gil shook his head. “No, it can’t be! Is that even possible? In some ways they’re very simple devices…”

  Tarvek massaged his forehead. “But they can plan and carry out such complex functions! I’ve seen them do it!”

  “I don’t know…” Gil said,“…if they acted like Sparks in other ways…”

  With a clang of triumph, one of the pocket-watch clanks smacked the other across the floor. When it had skidded to a stop, the second clank pantomimed just how it would rain lightning down upon its tormentor. The first clearly indicated how its opponent’s springs were wound too tight. Their chimes shrieked as they leapt towards each other in diminutive fury. Gil and Tarvek glanced at each other and slowly nodded.

  Finally Tarvek couldn’t stand it any more. He grabbed both of the little clanks and held them up. “All right,” he said sternly. “Enough of this! You two stop this right now. You’re supposed to be helping—”

  Simultaneously, the little clanks pinched Tarvek’s thumbs. Hard. He gave a whoop of pain and proceeded to bang the two errant machines together several times.

  Their eyes spun wildly for a moment, and then both clanks focused fearfully on Tarvek.

  “I’m not enjoying this,” he lied, “but I can do it all day. Do you understand?”

  The two devices looked contrite and clicked at him submissively. Gil chuckled.

  Tarvek turned angrily. “What’s so funny?”

  “
That’s a really good impersonation of my father.”

  Tarvek glared at Gil and then again addressed the two machines in his hands in a deeper, mock-serious voice. “And now I will establish an illegitimate government based on brute force, which will eventually leave you under the heel of my debauched libertine of a son, so be sure to hide all of your booze and women!”

  This was the first time the little clanks had been aware that they had either booze or women. They stared back with interest.

  “Hey, now, wait a minute—” Gil scowled.

  Violetta burst into the room, followed by von Zinzer. “They’re gone!” she announced.

  Von Zinzer looked worried. “Wulfenbach and I locked them up, but it looks like they’ve escaped.”

  Tarvek looked sideways at Gil. “Wait. She was here and you left her unguarded?”

  Gil was defensive. “I knocked her out with Ichor of Somnia!”

  “And then left her unguarded.”

  “And I locked her in an iron cage!”

  “Unguarded!”

  Gil threw his hands up. “Yes! We had work to do! On you!”

  Agatha was shocked. “Gil? You put her in a cage? But I thought you…um…but she’s completely useless!” She looked thoughtful. “At least, she seemed useless…”

  Tarvek clutched the sides of his head. “I can’t believe this!” He stared at Gil. “A powerful secret organization, one capable of hiding an army from the Baron, has been planning a slow-motion coup for years—and you completely underestimate the girl they groomed to be the Heterodyne? Practically the linchpin of the whole thing?”

  “You obviously haven’t met her,” Agatha said.

  “Oh, yes he has!” Gil said. “Your fake Heterodyne was Zola la Sirène Dorée!”

  Tarvek snorted. “What? No, that was that idiot back in Paris—”

  The look on Gil’s face stopped him dead. His jaw dropped.

  “She is good,” he whispered. “Agatha, she’s going to be real trouble.”

  They decamped quickly after that. Tarvek was still protesting. “I’m telling you, we’ve got to kill her as soon as possible.” He glanced over at Gil. “You’ll be sorry if we don’t.”

  Gil and Tarvek, still wobbly on their feet, had gone back to leaning on one another. Each had his arm across the other’s shoulders, keeping the tubes and wires that connected them safe.

  Agatha strode on ahead. “No. If she’s really that dangerous, I want you two fixed up as soon as possible.”

  “You can’t seriously think Zola is any kind of threat?” Gil insisted.

  “In Paris, I would have said, ‘Only if you let her sing.’ But if she’s the Order’s ‘Heterodyne Princess’, then there’s a lot more to her than she ever let on.”

  “Good point,” Gil said. “But still, Zola…I just can’t see it…” A thought struck him. “They’ll have a Storm King, too, I imagine. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  Tarvek looked carefully over at Gil’s face for a long moment. Gil didn’t seem to be toying with him…

  Finally, Tarvek said: “Hmf. Watch out. He’s probably your manservant.”

  “Nah. He’s a spy for the British. You know him—Ardsley Wooster.”

  “Really?” Tarvek was interested. “I thought the British spy was Ludmilla—you know—that grad student from the Pie and Phlogiston club.”

  “No, no. She was the last keeper of the Lost Key of the Red Pyramid of Bishara,” Gil said.

  “Red Pyramid—” Tarvek thought a moment. “Oh, right! I read about that in the Journal of the Société Archéologique de L’Étrange! Some adventurer won the key by defeating Bishara’s champion.”

  “Yeah!” Gil grinned. “Remember Thegon Ba’Kont? Big guy? Wrestling team?”

  “What? He was the adventurer? Really?”

  “Of course not! He was their champion! He and Ludmilla got married last month.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Tarvek said, “I sent them a toast rack.”

  “We’re there!” called Agatha.

  Professor Mezzasalma looked up in pleased surprise as Agatha appeared in the doorway. “Lady Heterodyne! You’re still alive!”

  “Indeed I am. How are things here? Has Professor Tiktoffen shown up? We lost track of him.”

  Diaz shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Señorita, but that one? The Castle will watch over him.”

  Mittlemind nodded. “And my minion has returned from the cistern with the stolen parts for the ‘Lion.’”

  Fraulein Snaug sat huddled on the floor clutching a large oilskin bag.

  “I kept her safe, and gave her a tour!” the Castle reassured Agatha.

  Agatha was not reassured. “Are you all right?” she asked Snaug.

  Snaug stared back at Agatha. “Spiky trapdoors,” she whispered. “Torture chambers…man-eating bats…impertinent mechanical squid…” She shuddered.

  Mittlemind tousled her hair affectionately. “Oh, there’s some minor psychological damage,” he said cheerfully. “But I always wipe her memory afresh for her birthday!”

  Snaug began slowly rocking back and forth. “Happy birthday to meeee…” she crooned softly.

  Agatha nodded. “Right.” She strode over to the large hole she had burned into the floor and looked down into the darkness. “I have to get to the bottom of this hole.”

  Professor Mittlemind clapped his hands together and rubbed them as he joined her. “Nothing simpler!”

  “—And survive.”

  Mittlemind paused. “Ah. Tricky.”

  The other prisoners peered down into the depths. Diaz raised a finger to the ceiling. “I will strap a series of shaped charges to your chest, and then you will detonate them just before you land!”

  Professor Mezzasalma snorted in derision. “Bah! I have a secret procedure of my own devising that will—probably—give you many properties of the noble spider! You can simply leap to the bottom!”

  “No, no, my lady,” Mittlemind interrupted. “My hydrophilic attractor could—theoretically—be modified to fill the Castle with water! Assuming your drains have been properly maintained, it will gracefully lower you to the bottom as it subsides!”

  The three scientists reared back and regarded one other with rising scorn. Von Zinzer raised a hand and indicated a large industrial winch. “This thing looks like it has enough cable, and it should be strong enough…we could knock together a platform and lower everybody down with some tools and everything. Nice and safe.”

  Every Spark in the room glared at him. Then Agatha looked sheepish and cleared her throat. Tarvek and Gil shook themselves. Diaz, Mittlemind and Mezzasalma continued to glower at him.

  Von Zinzer wilted under the Sparks’ gaze. “And…and then at the bottom,” he mumbled, “it could unfold into a…a giant caterpillar or something…”

  “No, no,” Mittlemind snarled. “You’ve already taken all the joy out of it.”

  Agatha rifled all the toolboxes in the room—searching for anything that looked like it might come in handy later. She asked the Castle if it had been able to find Zola.

  “No, my Lady. She escaped while I was checking the power, and she is most likely keeping to my dead zones.”

  “Well, pay attention, this time,” she told it.

  Von Zinzer checked the cable, hooked it up and, soon enough, declared the platform finished.

  Violetta threw a switch, and the engine on the winch chugged to life. Von Zinzer climbed aboard the platform and gently moved a sliding switch. With a gentle jerk, the platform rose into the air. Von Zinzer nodded and moved the switch the other way. Nothing happened. He frowned, reset it, and tried again. This time the platform dropped and bounced lightly against the ground. He raised it again and gave Agatha a thumbs-up. “I think we’re good to go.”

  “No, no, no! Absolutely not!” Mezzasalma declared. “The controls obviously need work!”

  “The gearage looks loose to me!” Mittlemind said.

  “I want all the weight-bearing areas double reinforced!”
Diaz chimed in.

  Agatha blew a lock of hair out her eyes. “We don’t have a lot of time—”

  They weren’t listening.

  “I need to install an entirely new backup system!”

  “Maybe triple! Even quadruple!”

  “The linkages—they should be rebuilt!”

  Von Zinzer touched Agatha’s arm. “Leave this to me.” He turned to the three scientists. “I’m going, you’re staying here.”

  They stared at him.

  “Oh, well then,” Mezzasalma shrugged.

  “It should be fine,” Mittlemind admitted.

  “Let us get started!” Diaz said.

  Violetta and Snaug watched with interest. As they helped load the platform, Snaug leaned in. “So. Your boyfriend is really good with dealing with Sparks. Has he served the Lady Heterodyne long?”

  Violetta shrugged. “I don’t know.” For some reason, her face was suddenly bright red. “Um…and he’s not my boyfriend.”

  Snaug regarded her in surprise. “Oh, reeeeally…” She turned her gaze back at von Zinzer and gnawed gently at her lower lip. She glanced back at Violetta and smiled. “I’m so glad we had this little talk.”

  Violetta sat down hard on a box, her eyes slightly crossed.

  Agatha handed a box of tools up to von Zinzer. “We’ll make a preliminary trip to make sure it’s safe, then we can bring everyone down.”

  Von Zinzer nodded. “Who else is going?” he sighed deeply. “Besides me, of course.”

  Gil and Tarvek stepped up. “We’re coming.”

  Agatha spun to face them. “You? Don’t be absurd! You’re—” She paused. Aside from their exotic, ever-changing pigmentation, they were both practically glowing with good health.

  Agatha’s eye’s narrowed. “You’re looking pretty good, actually.”

  Tarvek grinned. “Aren’t we, though?”

  “…Suspiciously good.” She bent to examine the device strapped to Tarvek’s chest. Her eye’s widened. “You—what have you done?” She examined Gil’s device. “These settings! You’ve rerouted the entire—” She stared at them, appalled. “You’ve cut your time in half! At least!”

  Gil and Tarvek tightened their jaws. “Yes!”