by Kaja Foglio
Snaug nudged the clank with her foot. “What’s the big deal?” she asked.
Tarvek was angry. “Well, aside from the fact that the body is a Van Rijn, and therefore priceless, it’s apparently being run by the last operational part of Castle Heterodyne.”
Snaug squealed and leapt back like she’d seen a snake. Then she thought a moment. “Wait, didn’t she want the Castle dead?”
“Only temporarily,” Agatha said. “There were so many fractured personalities working at cross-purposes, that I had already considered shutting it all down, if only to sort them all out. That’s why I saved all the parts for the Lion.” She stood up. “But I didn’t get a chance to test the idea before I had to do it.”
Gil looked serious. “So, you’re thinking we can still get the Castle running in time?” he asked Agatha.
She paced furiously. “Yes! We’ve got to! It’s the only way I can protect the town!”
She strode over to the hole in the floor and looked down. “Having this fragment could speed things up enough to save us, but not if it shuts down, too. She waved a hand at the depths. “Fortunately, I have a pretty good idea that there’s something down there I can use.”
Gil and Tarvek looked at her quizzically, but didn’t argue.
“Well, let’s go have a look, then,” said Gil.
Soon, a small party had crowded onto the platform and was descending farther down the shaft. Von Zinzer manned the controls, glancing up nervously. “I hope these cables hold,” he fretted.
Gil shone a lantern down into the darkness. “From the way the Castle was talking, I didn’t think there was anything below the Great Movement Chamber.”
Agatha nodded slowly. “I…I don’t think it knew.”
Von Zinzer looked astonished. “What? How could it not know? That thing knows everything!”
“Well,” Agatha said, “I’m not yet sure, but I suspect this is my mother’s secret laboratory.”
The angel clank flicked to life in Airman Higg’s arms. “That is-is cor-re-rect. It was hidden. A-a-a secret place beneath my-my very heart. The audacity…”
At that moment, the platform descended into a large cavern.
Von Zinzer kept his eyes on the cables, but asked. “But how did you know this was here?”
Agatha looked thoughtful, and checked the clasp on her locket. “I didn’t. Not exactly, but it just…made sense…”
In apparent reaction to the movement of the platform, lights began flickering on. They revealed a large natural cavern that had been extensively shaped. Banks of machinery lined the walls and collected in islands. Some were covered in dust cloths, others simply left exposed. Furniture lay scattered, tables were stacked with books. Tattered chairs, abandoned machinery, and mildew-covered rugs had been tossed about by some unknown agency long ago. Something violent had happened here. There was evidence of a fire that had burned and melted a huge collection of chemical apparatus. Machinery was tipped and shattered, and debris from a seismic-level event had left dust and shards from the ceiling scattered everywhere.
The more she saw, the more upset Agatha became until, with a gasp, she realized that the emotions she felt were not entirely her own. She took a sharp breath and tried to analyze the source of the distress, but even as she tried, the feelings began to recede.
Von Zinzer gasped and stopped the platform with a sudden jerk a half a meter above the ground. Everyone grabbed tight to the frame and glared at him. He pointed downward. “That looks weird.”
They looked down. A trail of what looked suspiciously like dried blood led away from the floor where the platform would settle. At the other end of the red smear was a crumpled form. Gil, Zeetha, Tarvek, and Violetta leapt from the platform and ran to examine it. Agatha and the rest followed.
As he reached its side, Gil reared back in shock. “It’s Madame Von Pinn!”
The fearsome construct stirred. Her eyes fluttered open. Her tongue licked delicately at her lips as she tried to speak. Gil and Tarvek knelt to look into her face. Tarvek fumbled in a bag and offered her a flask of water, from which she took a delicate sip.
“Madame Von Pinn,” Gil said firmly. “Don’t move!”
Von Pinn’s one good eye rolled towards him and she grimaced. “Master Wulfenbach,” she whispered in a voice like a wire brush dragged against stone. “What are you doing here?” She closed her eyes wearily, “Such a troublesome child.”
Tarvek grimaced as he completed his examination. “Gil, this looks really bad.”
Von Pinn stirred and glanced his way. “Ah. And Prince Sturmvarous. Of course…naughty children…always getting into trouble when you are together…getting into places you do not belong…”
Tarvek leaned in. “Just…Just hold on,” he said fiercely, “You are severely injured.”
Von Pinn’s lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. “Tsk. No, child, I am dying.” She closed her eye and sighed. “It feels very peculiar, and I do not like it.” Her voice grew faint. Her attention was wandering. “But then, I have not enjoyed any of this. I would just as soon be done with it. Still…to have failed…”
Airman Higgs joined them. He still carried the angel clank in his arms. At its command, he placed it near the dying construct’s head. “You-you-you will not cease!” it said fiercely. “The-the-these children will he-elp-help.”
Von Pinn groggily turned her head toward the clank. “Ah. You! You have returned.” Her eyes focused and she took in the full extent of the angel’s condition. Her eyes widened and she bared her sharp teeth. “But what have you done to my body?” she growled.
Gil and Tarvek had been holding an intense, whispered conversation. Finally, with the help of Higgs and Mezzasalma, they were able to gently lift the wounded construct and begin moving her toward a heavy table. Violetta darted ahead and began to sweep books and papers away to make room.
“What do you think you are doing?” Von Pinn hissed. “Foolish children.” She struggled weakly as she was laid down.
“Violetta!” Tarvek ordered, “Find the medical supplies! This place must have something!”
Violetta briefly considered arguing that he no longer got to boss her around, then thought better of it and ran to look.
Agatha merely stood by, watching in horror.
Von Zinzer also stood by, wondering at the activity. He turned to Krosp, who was fastidiously washing his paws in a small laboratory sink. “Uh…aren’t you supposed to lick yourself clean?”
Krosp rolled his eyes. “We’ve been walking across old, deserted lab floors in Castle Heterodyne. You wanna lick that?”
Von Zinzer scratched his beard. “You are a smart cat.” He glanced back at the bustling scientists. “Do you understand what’s going on?”
Krosp looked around and then dried his paws on von Zinzer’s shirt. “Yes. I think I do. It sounds like Lucrezia was big on swapping minds. The clank says it’s Castle Heterodyne. Fine. So Lucrezia stuffed some of the Castle into the angel clank body. Von Pinn’s outburst makes me think that she is probably the muse Otilia, stuffed into an organic construct body.”
Von Zinzer frowned. “But Castle Heterodyne had a mind.” He thought about this. “…Of sorts.”
“It had a patchwork collection of sub-minds. Why not one more piece, stuck in a smaller frame?”
“Why would Lucrezia do that?”
Krosp just looked at him with half-lidded green eyes.
Von Zinzer shrugged in embarrassment. “Yeah, okay. She was a Spark. I get that. But… She was living here. It was one of the things protecting her and her kid.”
Krosp considered this. “True, but remember who we’re talking about. I’ll bet being under the eye of an all-powerful intelligence she couldn’t control was driving her even more crazy than usual. I can see her deciding to see if she could catch a bit of the Castle and put it in a doll she controlled. She’d feel like she had some power over it.”
Von Zinzer nodded sagely. “That never works, you know.”
Krosp paused, looked around at the ruined laboratory. Then he glanced up towards the ceiling, and the rest of the Castle beyond it. “Yeah…and I’m beginning to wonder just how badly it didn’t work.”
With Gil and Tarvek ordering the others around, a surprisingly serviceable medical setup was soon built around the supine construct. Professor Mezzasalma finished carefully threading some tubes. Gil plucked them from his hands and spun them into place. Agatha and Violetta were slicing away Von Pinn’s thick leather outfit, while Tarvek followed closely behind, inserting catheters and assessing the damage revealed.
The professor stepped back and took a deep breath. He studied the two men for a moment. “You two seem… unusually agitated. You are familiar with this creature?”
Gil glared at him. The Spark rang in his voice. “This ‘creature’, as you call her, is the closest thing to a mother I have ever known.”
Tarvek nodded. “She’s the only caretaker I ever had who showed me love or kindness.”
“She never cared about our backgrounds.”
“She never played favorites.”
“Yes, she was strict…”
“She was terrifying.”
“But she knew the life we’d lead.”
“She made us strong.”
Gil gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “And now she is reduced to this!”
Tarvek placed his hand on her other shoulder. “Who could have done this?”
They met each other’s eyes. “Whoever they are, they will pay!” Gil growled.
“Yes!” Tarvek agreed fiercely. “Slowly and painfully!”
Agatha cleared her throat nervously. “For what it’s worth, she did kill my parents.”
An awkward silence filled the room. The two young men glanced at each other. Agatha continued. “I…can never forgive her for that, but…
“But if you can manage to hold off on the slow, painful vengeance, I will do what I can to help.”
Tarvek tentatively raised a finger. “Erm, are you sure it was her?”
This was too much for Agatha. “I watched her rip them to bits right in front of my eyes!” she screamed.
Tarvek turned to Gil, worried. “Okay, that’s all I’ve got. You got anything?”
Gil rubbed the back of his neck. “Hm…Maybe…”
“Go for it. Please.”
Gil took a deep breath. “Actually, I wanted to tell you at, I don’t know, a better time, but Punch and Judy? They’re still alive.”
Agatha was shocked. Then she glowered, and looked like she was going to punch him. “Impossible! Why would you say—”
“Not impossible,” Gil interrupted. “Just very, very difficult! After you escaped from Castle Wulfenbach, I had them in my lab within the hour, hooked up to oxygenated nutrients, and being prepped. I stitched them back together and the reanimation process was underway within a week.”
Agatha’s face was now filled with a look of wonder. Gil continued. “As far as I can determine, there’s almost no memory loss. They’re still recuperating, but—” All at once Gil found his arms full of Agatha. She was hugging him with almost bone-cracking force.
“Gil! You’re wonderful!” She kissed him and thanked him over and over again, still holding him tight.
Gil tried to enjoy the moment, but he could almost feel Tarvek glowering at him.
“Seriously? The old ‘bring her family back from the grave’ gambit?” Tarvek’s lip curled. “Have you no shame?” He turned away from Gil and Agatha, picked up a syringe, and got back to work, muttering bitterly to himself. “I mean, jeez, it’s such a cliché! The last time I saw it was in Feydeau’s ‘The Clockwork Pantalettes’! And the reviews for that were terrible!”99
Violetta kicked him in the shins. “Are you listening to yourself?”
Gil tried to ignore Tarvek’s jealous rambling. “They’re stable now, but they’re back on Castle Wulfenbach. I’ve left orders for them to be transferred to the Great Hospital as soon as it’s possible.”
Agatha let go of Gil sat down abruptly. “I just…it’s amazing.” she said in a daze. “She tore them to shreds.” “The thing we should be asking,” Zeetha said grimly, “Is what will she do to you if she gets a chance?”
Agatha considered this. “She didn’t kill me,” she said slowly. “And she had the chance.” She looked at Gil and Tarvek. “She’s important to these two. I’ll help them now, and, well, try to talk to her later.”
“You may not get the chance.” Tarvek said. “She really is dying, and we don’t have a lot of options down here.”
The angel clank hissed in distress. “This-is-is must-must-must-must not-not-not-not happen!” Its eyes flared. “You can-can-can-can-could-will-will-will—must do this for us-us-us!”
Agatha knelt down beside the stricken device. “Shh. Take it slow.” she said in a soothing voice. “Now…do what? What can I do?”
Lights flashed again within the clank’s eyes. “The M-mu-muse Otilia was pried-torn from this vessel. She-it-she must be-be restored to it, and I—returned to my proper function-instrumentality.”
Agatha straightened up. “You want to return her to this mechanical body? How will that help? It’s dying, too.” “No-no-no. Not dying. Not alive. I am Castle Heterodyne. I am—was—am vast. This engine constrains me. I-I am too much for it. But re-re-restore its muse, and this clank can be salvaged. Re-repaired.”
It jerked its chin towards the mechanisms that littered the room. “This is where it was done. These are the machines. You-she can do this, and you must do it now!”
Agatha stared at the clank. Her jaw firmed and she nodded once. Then she stood and clapped her hands. “Let’s get to work!”
A while later, von Zinzer was peering closely at the inner workings of the control panel on the lift cage. He pushed aside a wire with the tip of his screwdriver and a fierce grin twisted his face. “Oh yeah,” he breathed. “There’s the problem.”
“Herr von Zinzer?”
Von Zinzer turned. “Ah, Fraulein Snaug.”
She smiled at him. Without Lucrezia actually giving her orders, she was able to operate as normally as she ever did.
However, Zeetha had hit her hard in the fight, and she now sported a prominent black eye. She held up a sausage and a pot of beer. “I brought you something to eat.” She indicated the crowd of Sparks at the other end of the room. “They’ll want to get going soon.”
Von Zinzer gratefully accepted the sausage and took a bite, which made him realize just how hungry he was. “Thanks,” he said sincerely. He then tapped the control panel. “Oh…I was just thinking about you.”
Snaug was surprised. “Oh! Really?”
“Sure. That trouble you had operating the lift?” He tapped the panel again. “Not your fault, see? Loose worm gear.”
Snaug blushed and giggled. “Thank goodness! I’d hate for you to think me clumsy.”
Von Zinzer waved a hand. “Oh, not at all. Clumsy people don’t last around here.” He looked at her again and frowned. “Hey. Let me look at that eye.”
The girl felt an unaccustomed wave of embarrassment sweep over her. “Oh! Don’t look…”
Von Zinzer gently took her jaw in his hand and tilted her head to examine her. She was struck by the change that had taken place in him. Snaug had been in the Castle for close to six months. She had seen von Zinzer arrive and had been unimpressed. As far as anyone could tell, he really shouldn’t even have been here at all. Everyone thought of the little mechanic as a hopeless screw-up who was still alive only because no new prisoners had lasted long enough to force him out of the kitchen. But now… now there was a calm surety to him that was almost unknown in this place. He nodded.
“Nice mouse,” he said with a smile. “But it doesn’t really suit you.” He turned and began to dig through a rucksack. He pulled out a small ceramic pot, opened it, and taking a finger full of the white paste inside, gently dabbed it on Snaug’s eyelid.
“I found this earlier. Up in what the Castle ca
lls ‘the red playroom.’ Just dab that on every hour or so, and it’ll fix it right up.” He resealed the jar and handed it to her.
She took the jar and smiled. “You’re too kind. And, so…grounded.”
Von Zinzer looked at her blankly. “Grounded?”
Snaug waved a hand at Agatha and the others. “Able to work so well with Sparks without getting…you know…It’s a rare talent.”
Von Zinzer gave a snort. “No way. I’ve always been terrified around them.”
Snaug’s good eye was wide. “What? But the way you’re dealing with them is amazing. You stand up to them. You contradict them, and you’re still mammalian and everything.”
“Huh.” Von Zinzer considered this and scratched his beard. “You know? It has seemed…easier lately.” He found himself staring at Agatha. “Ever since she showed up and started dragging me around…”
Hexalena’s face cleared and she looked at von Zinzer with a new respect. “Oh, of course! Dr. Mittlemind says that some people are natural minions, and that their lives are…are all confused until they find their proper Master. And now you have.”
Across the room, even the Sparks flinched as von Zinzer’s scream reached them. They all swung around to see what had happened. From beside the huddled form, Fraulein Snaug waved at them cheerfully. “Just a small existential crisis,” she assured them.
Agatha frowned. “What in the world is Snaug doing to Von Zinzer?” she wondered.
Violetta slammed a tool onto the ground and then picked it back up and seeing that it was undamaged, slammed it down again even harder. “Like I care!” She frowned. Why did she care?
Meanwhile, Gil was talking to Professor Mezzasalma and Zeetha. “What we’re hoping to do is transfer the Castle mind out of the Muse body and into one of the Castle’s own subsystems. That will buy us the time we need to transport it to an area where we can restore its control of the main structure. Our best shot is to use that big watchdog clank at the top of the shaft.”
Mezzasalma frowned “Those clanks are enormous. We might be able to transport it down on the lift, but it would be much easier to take the Muse up.”