Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

CHAPTER 7

The smooth concrete walkways that wound through the Gardens of Mechanicsburg’s Great Hospital were designed for the comfort of perambulating patients. Tonight, instead of patients, they were thronged with Wulfenbach military forces—taking advantage of the superior view that the hospital’s elevated grounds afforded of the rest of Mechanicsburg.

Some were camped around impromptu fires, brewing mugs of something or other—or having a smoke and a rest. Others were gathered around long tables borrowed from the hospital, studying maps and lists by the light of field lamps. But most of them were leaning against the ornate concrete balustrades that encircled the area, looking down upon the rest of the town.

The hospital was constructed in an area of the town that is, by design, intended to shut down at night so that its patients can sleep in peace. The local businesses tend to be medical supply shops, hotels that cater to visiting families (who probably won’t much feel like painting the town red), pharmacies, and the better class of resurrectionist.

That had all been overturned today. Every building in sight had been hung with the ornate, decorative trilobite lanterns that the townspeople haul out for festive occasions. Every courtyard and wide space in the road had been turned into an impromptu beer garden and dance hall.

One of the old Heterodynes had decreed that every Mechanicsburg child must learn to play a musical instrument.⁵⁷ The tradition has continued to this day, and the results filled the night with the distinctive Mechanicsburg stutter-step baseline that can be heard in the more bohemian cafes of Paris and Prague,⁵⁸ blending together into an infectious wave of music that had the far off watchers absentmindedly tapping their toes.

A tall, grey-haired Captain of the Medical Corps smiled as he saw a portly little man instructing a mixed set of the younger ranks in a complicated pattern dance he himself fondly remembered from his days as a young rake in Plovdiv. He riffled through his brain until the correct name surfaced.

“Sergeant Scorp,” he called out. At once the aergeant turned about, fired off a crisp salute, and then winced slightly as he trotted over.

The captain nodded, as he returned the salute. “How’s the arm, Sergeant?”

“Good as new, sir.” Scorp then realized that he was still rubbing it and gave a wan smile. “Well, good enough for the Baron’s work, anyway. This hospital is a marvel, and no mistake.”

Indeed it was. When the sergeant had been brought in two days ago, his arm had been dislocated with two bullets lodged in it. Balan’s Gap had seen heavy fighting and, if the reports were to be believed, it was not yet pacified completely.

The captain prodded the sergeant’s arm and nodded in satisfaction. “Excellent. We’ll need every man we can get.”

“And soon, I’m guessing,” the sergeant sighed. “Though it’s been quiet enough up here…”

Both men glanced over the railing. The situation was tricky. Officially, Mechanicsburg was a part of the Empire, but everyone knew that it was a slightly bent one. In any other town, seeing Castle Wulfenbach chased off might have had a few of the locals smiling quietly to themselves, but this public celebration was worrying. Especially since this unprecedented reversal was treated almost as an unimportant side-effect. The hoopla was really about the news that a Heterodyne had appeared.

Oh, it hadn’t been confirmed by the castle or the Baron or anyone official, but word on the street was that this one was the real thing. Not like the fakes that turned up every now and then.

If that was true…well, neither soldier was privy to the rarified politics of the Empire, of course, but any fool could see that there was going to be trouble. For almost twenty years, wide-eyed naïfs and demagogues alike had declared that the return of the Heterodynes would bring about an end of the Baron and usher in a renaissance of plenty. Now one had appeared, and she was already up to her neck in trouble.

No matter how you looked at it, things were going to get interesting.

The captain sighed. “With any luck, they’ll party all night. We’re low on troops, so we’ve been concentrating what we’ve got on the city walls, the armory, and the hospital.”

Both men glanced up at the sky. With those flying flamethrowers keeping the fleets away, fresh troops would have to come in overland, which would be a logistical nightmare. The Empire had grown accustomed to ruling the skies.

Scorp looked down on the celebrants again. They looked cheerful enough, but—“Shouldn’t there be patrols on the streets?” He then looked abashed. There were numerous jokes about soldiers trying to second-guess old Klaus’s strategies.

The captain politely ignored the faux pas. “He’s got it covered. He’s had a hundred hogsheads of double-fortified lingonberry snap distributed throughout the town, as a ‘congratulations’ sort of thing.”⁵⁹

Scorp stared and then started to grin. “If they hoist a noggin or two of that stuff to the Lady Heterodyne, they’ll be too busy skipping through the streets tryin’ to catch flyin’ pink mimmoths!”

The captain nodded. “Still, there’s no telling what this new girl will do now that she’s in Castle Heterodyne.”

Scorp’s face went sour and he rubbed his arm again. “You’re on target with that one, sir.”

The captain failed to notice the degree to which this discussion affected the sergeant. “Personally, I just wish we knew if she was the real thing or a fake. Once we get some more troops—”

The sergeant swayed slightly. “Hey! You feel that?” “That” rapidly grew into a vibration underfoot which continued to grow in strength.

“It’s an earth tremor,” the captain exclaimed. “And it’s getting stronger!” Shouts of alarm began to break out among the troops. “I knew it! She’s going to kill us with some damnable earthquake machine!”

But the sergeant raised a hand. He heard a peculiar high-pitched squealing. One he was familiar with. “Everybody!” he roared in his best parade-ground voice. “Fall back to the walls!”

Instantly every trooper within earshot grabbed their gear and took off at a stumbling run over the shaking ground. In the center of the gardens, a mound formed and the raw earth continued stretching skyward until suddenly a spinning, metal drill point burst through, scattering dirt and plants for several dozen square meters. The point continued to rise, followed by the rest of the cylindrical machine erupting up and out of the ground. It wavered slightly and the great drill began to slow. Then slowly, majestically, it toppled onto recessed treads, which bounced with a springy jolt.

Everyone stared at it for a minute, as it cooled with a series of clicks and hisses. Then they all jumped again as the rear end swung open, spilling forth a red light and an excited young man in an abbreviated Wulfenbach uniform. He glanced around and then pumped his fist in triumph.

“Woo-hoo!” he crowed to the sky. He turned and yelled back into the machine—“Well done, Scopes! We’re right outside the Great Hospital!”

A slim young woman appeared at the entrance and delicately wiped a sheen of sweat from her dark brow. “All it takes is an accurate 3-D sonar compass, sir.”

“Good thing you built us one, eh?” He turned to the captain, who was frowning as he hurried over. “Never thought we’d get past all those basements.” The captain opened his mouth and the young man snapped out a salute. “Ahoy! Major Resetti, First Subterranean Mecha-Mole Brigade!” He jerked a thumb back. “‘Scopes’ here is Lieutenant Krishnamurti.”

The lieutenant was already saluting, and the captain impatiently saluted back. “Begging your pardon, Major. But your worm-chaser’s busted through a secure perimeter! Leaving a tunnel—” He broke off at the sight of the major’s smirk. “Something funny, Major?”

Sergeant Scorp coughed delicately. “That’s a Deep Six Model, sir,” he said quietly. “Collapses the tunnel in after itself.”

The captain shut his mouth with an audible click and nodded once.⁶⁰

Major Resetti beamed. “Well spotted, Sergeant!”

The captain flushed. “Even so—”

Again he was interrupted. “Captain.” The speaker had just emerged from the Mecha-Mole, and it must have been a tight fit. She was over two meters tall and her shoulders were almost two wide. She was dressed in no-nonsense leathers which steamed slightly in the cooler air. Across her chest were strung several bandoliers containing ammunition for the hand cannon hanging from her hip, as well as a thick baldric which held an enormous broadsword across her back.

Her face was broad and plain, her hair was black and cropped short, and her eyes were intense. “I have a package for the Baron.” She patted an Imobilex jug that stood by her side.⁶¹ “One that he ordered personally.” Anticipating the captain’s next words, she presented a sheaf of papers.

The captain ignored them and stared at her. “Who the devil are you?”

The woman merely jiggled her papers. Sergeant Scorp took them and perfunctorily checked them while he made introductions. “This is the Lady Grantz, sir. She’s the Baron’s monster hunter.”

The captain blinked and stepped back. Grantz looked at the sergeant and raised an eyebrow. “Have we met?”

The sergeant handed her back her papers and tossed her a salute of his own. “Sergeant Damien Scorp. Of the Baron’s Vespiary Squad.”

Grantz looked interested. “The Bug Hunters.”

“Yes’m. Had the privilege of watching you work in Belgrade last year.”⁶²

Grantz looked pleased. “Good outfit,” she conceded. “You’ll do.”

The sergeant’s eyebrows rose. “Do for what, Ma’am?”

The monster hunter patted the Imobilex jug. “I need to get this bad boy to the Baron. I could use your help.”

The sergeant grimaced. Imobilex jugs weighed a lot. “It’ll take a while, Ma’am, but I could requisition a heavy caisson. Be a problem on the soft ground, but—”

Grantz interrupted. “No, no.” She effortlessly hoisted the jug up onto her shoulder and indicated a leather grip at her feet. “I just want you to carry my bag.”

The sergeant had worked with enough of the Empires’ Special Units to know when he was seeing a show put on for the benefit of others, and indeed, the captain, the Mecha-Mole drivers, and the rest of the assembled soldiery were watching with clearly growing awe.

“Stand aside,” he roared. “This lady is making a delivery!” Instantly a path towards the hospital gates opened and they set off.

“Do you know where the Baron is?” Grantz asked.

The sergeant shook his head. “Somewhere in the hospital, Ma’am. But I heard he’s movin’ around.”

They approached the main entrance to the hospital, which was now behind a barricade consisting of at least two-dozen troopers, several of the large brass clanks, and an enormous green-furred ape creature. The soldiers saw the sergeant and Grantz approaching and the ape stepped forward.

“Grantz,” he muttered cordially. Even though it was night, Nak wore a large pair of smoked goggles that glinted in the lights.

The monster hunter gave him a smile. “Sergeant Nak.”⁶³

The sergeant bared his fangs. “You have come for me.”

The monster hunter shifted the Imobilex jug to her other shoulder. “In your dreams.”

Nak stared at her. His fangs were still displayed, but the corners of his mouth turned up. “Yes—in the very best ones!” He then turned to Sergeant Scorp and his demeanor changed. “And who is this?”

The sergeant stared up at the large goggles and refrained from saluting with great effort. “Sergeant Scorp, Vespiary Squad.”

Nak leaned down and examined him closely. Scorp felt the chemical-scented breath gust past him. Nak straightened up and waved them through. “Watch your back, little man,” he growled.

Scorp waited until they were in the building’s foyer. “What was that about?”

Grantz looked embarrassed. “Don’t mind him. Nak gets jealous.”

The sergeant almost dropped the bag. “But—wait—”

Grantz rolled her eyes. “He can’t help it. Under those goggles? He’s a green-eyed monster.”

There was a lot left unsaid in that statement. Sergant Scorp was open-minded. He had to be. In the Armies of the Empire you worked with—and relied upon—any number of things that were, well, not human necessarily, but certainly people. And it followed that two people of any type might form the strongest of bonds. Scorp had seen it happen often enough. Hell, his daughter had fallen for an accountant, of all things, and after he’d gone to all the trouble of setting her up with a nice reanimated fellow from his old unit. No, nothing surprised him anymore, but…

“I thought you hunted monsters.”

To his astonishment, the woman laughed at this. “Only the ones that cause trouble. Most of my work involves the shambling, mindless stuff. Rogue machines, beasts gone mad…Intelligent, sentient monsters are rarer than you’d think.”

A sweet voice arose from one of the chairs in the lobby. It sounded amused. “About time you got here.”

To his surprise, Scorp saw Grantz spin, slide the Imobilex jar to the ground, and whip her sword out in one smooth movement. The tip of the blade pointed at a curvaceous woman with dark skin and jet-black hair clad in the white uniform of the Baron’s exploratory fleet. She was lazily unfolding herself from the chair and she was a beautiful sight. It wasn’t until he saw the small skull-shaped bindi upon her forehead that Scorp realized they were standing before Captain Bangladesh DuPree. The bag dropped from his suddenly cold hands. I never even heard her coming, he thought, with a touch of panic.

Captain DuPree stared a moment, cross-eyed, at the sword held motionless centimeters from her nose. Then she grinned up at Grantz insouciantly. “Maybe someday, girlie.” She moved the sword aside with the tip of a finger. “But not today. Come on, Klaus is waiting for you.”

She turned and headed off with a light step. The monster hunter stared after her for a second, sheathed her sword, and bent to pick up the Imobilex jug. She only remembered Scorp when he moved to pick up her valise. She gave him a small smile, such as you’d see between two veterans who had survived an attack, and continued her conversation as if she’d never stopped. “But when you do meet an intelligent monster, you really have to be careful.”

They followed Captain DuPree through the hospital corridors, which magically cleared of people as she approached. To Scorp’s surprise, they passed through another lobby and he realized that they were again outside, in one of the hospital’s hidden courtyards. This one was crowded with people, clerks, and functionaries, as well as a few of the higher brass. Scorp then saw that the tower of machinery they were clustered around was some sort of giant clank, which was currently at rest upon the ground. Seated at its apex was the Master of the Empire, Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. Sergeant Scorp had seen his share of battle injuries. The Baron looked like he’d decided to try a fair sampling of all of them.

Everyone was talking. Scorp resigned himself to a long wait, but Captain DuPree simply waded forward. “Hey, Klaus!” Everyone froze and again a space cleared out around her. She waved the two of them forward without looking at them. “Grantz is here, with that big jar of trouble you ordered.”

The monster hunter stepped forward and swung the jar off of her shoulder. Her face was a mask of concern. “Herr Baron. I’d heard you were injured but I had no idea. Should you be up?”

Klaus smiled. “Despite Dr. Sun’s histrionics, I can assure you that it looks worse than it is.” He turned serious. “Your delivery?”

Grantz nodded. Taking a key from around her neck, she unlocked a panel, which swung aside. She flipped several switches and the lid of the jug squealed and slowly began to unscrew itself. The crowd pulled farther back. Sergeant Scorp would have liked to have done the same but instead he simply clutched the valise tighter.

The lid fell off and Grantz dipped her hand into the jar, hauling out a limp figure wrapped in a hunter’s net. She pulled a small device from a pouch at her belt, touched it to the netting, and it fell apart, revealing none other than Othar Tryggvassen—the famous Spark and self-proclaimed hero—who glared defiantly at his surroundings before folding up and collapsing onto the floor.

Grantz held up her hand. “Please. Don’t underestimate him this time. This is the second time I’ve had to bring him in.”

She nudged Othar with her foot. “What’s the matter with you? Are you trying to pull some kind of trick?”

“No!” Othar snapped. “My legs simply fell asleep! Have you ever been stuffed into one of those things?” He flexed his legs and grimaced. “You people certainly know how to ruin an entrance.”

Klaus rolled his eyes. Othar lived his life knowing that, no matter the situation, he was The Hero, and thus tried to be as—Klaus searched for a word—dramatic? No—as showmanlike as possible. This made him a great favorite amongst the populace at large.

“Okay,” Othar announced. “I’m good.” He smoothly rolled, bounced to his feet, and struck a dramatic pose.

Klaus ignored the resultant smattering of applause.

“So, Tyrant, we meet again!” Othar said, “But know that Othar Tryggvassen—Gentleman Adventurer—remains unbowed! Though you hold all of Europa within your grasp, I am not afraid! Imprison me! Torture me! Try to break my will! You will fail!”

Baron Wulfenbach disliked dealing with Othar for so many reasons. Most of them had to do with the man’s staunch determination to “right wrongs and fight injustice,” while steadfastly ignoring the effects his often spectacularly destructive efforts had upon the delicate game of give-and-take necessary to maintain the fragile political structure that was the Empire of the Pax Transylvania. Still, probably the most personal reason was that, whenever he was in Othar’s presence, the Baron invariably found himself acting like an over-the-top villain in a Heterodyne play, which was just embarrassing. Today was no exception.

“I suppose I really should just kill you,” he said.

Othar paused in his dramatic speech. “Oooh. I didn’t see that one coming.”

Klaus smiled evilly, caught himself, and grimaced. “But, in fact, I won’t. I have a job for you.”

Othar considered this. “Why do I think I’d prefer to be killed?”

Klaus regarded him with raised eyebrows. “Good heavens. It’s possible that you really are smart. The Heterodyne girl—”

“Ah! That would be the lovely young innocent who escaped your evil clutches—with some small assistance from myself.” Othar interjected with a semblance of modesty. “Of course, I didn’t know who she was then…”

Klaus nodded. “You are somewhat responsible for the current situation, but only somewhat. There are two Heterodyne girls at present. One is an obvious fake, part of a plot against the Empire that has already been crushed.

“But both girls are now inside Castle Heterodyne. In the fake I have little interest. But this ‘Agatha Heterodyne’—as she calls herself at the moment—I have to believe that she has the potential to hold the Castle. The people will follow her. My own son has entered the Castle with the stated intention of aiding her. At this rate, all too soon she’ll be securely entrenched within an impenetrable fortress, firmly established as a Heterodyne, and allied, in the mind of the people, with the House of Wulfenbach. She’ll be able to do anything.”

Othar mulled this over. “But… if she is working with your son…a loathsome concept! But…” Othar paused. “But why do you speak as though this is a bad thing? Agatha struck me as a good girl!” He shrugged. “Well, as good as a Spark can be, anyway.”⁶⁴ He looked at DuPree. “Am I missing something?”

DuPree waved a hand. “Whenever he goes on like this, I just think of how many different ways I can spell ‘eviscerate.’”

The Baron’s voice rose until he was nearly shouting: “Because this girl, the girl you ‘rescued’ from me, is actually the Other!”

Othar’s breath caught. “The Great Enemy!” He frowned. “But the Other hasn’t been active in nearly twenty years!”

“Well she’s active now! Her slaver wasps and her machines are responsible for the mess in Balan’s Gap. I’ve talked to her. She didn’t even try to hide it.”

Othar shook his head. “I cannot believe that the innocent girl I aided is the Other! Her age! Her behavior—”

“Believe it, sir.”

Everyone looked around in surprise at Sergeant Scorp. He was amazed at his own audacity, but determined to speak. “Your pardon, Herr Baron, but my squad’s the one that found her at Sturmhalten.” He turned back to Othar. “The city’s full of revenants. A new type, not your usual mindless shamblers. Most of the time, they look and act normal.”

He paused. “I gotta tell you, there was something about that girl. I’d’ve trusted her with my life. And then…then she shot her friend point-blank in the back just because he was tryin’ to warn us. She ordered the townspeople to kill us.” Scorp looked ill at the memory. “And they sure as hell tried.”

He looked up at them now, a fighting man talking to other fighting men. “I’ve been a soldier close to thirty years. I know how to…to read people, you know? I just got the knack. And I have never been as wrong about anyone as I was about her.” His eyes met Othar’s. “I know you don’t got no reason to trust me, Herr Tryggvassen, but I was there and that’s the truth of it.”

Othar stared at the sergeant and nodded slowly.

Klaus blinked. There was a change in the man. The constant air of unspoken braggadocio was gone. It…he can’t always be…acting…can he? The thought was chilling. Klaus had always considered Othar a clown. If this was all just a game to him…

“Assuming this is true,” Othar asked the Baron, “what do you want from me?”

Inside Castle Heterodyne, Agatha, Tarvek, Moloch, and Violetta squeezed past a collapsed doorway into a large open atrium. Carved faces leered down at them as they picked their way through the rubble and dust.

Moloch looked back the way they had come. “Wulfenbach should be inside by now. Aren’t we going to get him?”

“No,” Agatha snapped. “I’m still mad at him.”

Tarvek, who had been leading the way, stopped and hitched his toga up. “We should go get him.”

Agatha bit her lip. “I really don’t want to waste any time while you try to ‘sort him out’ for me.”

Tarvek snorted. “Is that your reason? Trust me, while I’d love to, it would be prudent to defer that particular pleasure. Practically speaking, we’re far better off if he’s here working with us.”

Agatha regarded him skeptically.

Tarvek continued, “Think about it. This place is broken. Its governing intelligence is fractured, and most of the sub-systems don’t recognize you as the Heterodyne. The more Sparks we have helping, the faster we can get it fixed, and that can only help our chances of survival. I don’t know much about this fellow but everything I’ve heard says that whatever else he may be, he is a powerful Spark.”

Agatha’s mouth twitched in annoyance. “I’m not terribly happy about having you here either.”

Tarvek looked away. “Yes, I got that.” He took a deep breath and looked back. “But I still think we should get him. You can always kill us both later if you must.”

“No!” Agatha snapped.

“Your pardon, Mistress,” the Castle chimed in. “But that is an accepted method of dealing with contractors.”

“No! I want Gil out of here! Alive! Can you throw him out without hurting him?”

“Not in my current state. He is not in an area I can see.”

“Don’t be naïve,” Tarvek growled. “You’re obviously new at this, so let me give you some political advice. The only thing that might keep the Baron from leveling this place is the Baron’s son being in here. If you want to deal with the Baron from a position of strength, you’re going to need the legitimacy of being the Heterodyne. To get that, you need a functioning Castle. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach may be an ill-bred dog, but he can help you—if only by acting as a shield while you work!”

Agatha shook her head. “No! I won’t use him as a hostage. This place is too dangerous. I don’t want another—I don’t want anyone dying on my behalf. Not even you.”

Tarvek paused. “Why, that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me since I got here.”

“Treasure it and get out!”

“I am not leaving. I can’t leave. And, as much as it irks me, I’m betting Wulfenbach won’t just leave either.”

“I can’t trust either one of you!” she shouted.

“So what? You don’t have the luxury of trust. But if you’re going to get us all out of this, you…you need to use what you’ve got.” Tarvek swayed slightly.

Agatha looked at him with a touch of concern. Despite being clad in only a sheet, Tarvek was sweating profusely. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. Violetta!” And with that, Tarvek folded up and collapsed to the floor. Violetta was at his side, swearing.

“I thought he’d be good for longer than that,” she muttered.

Tarvek looked up at them. “Have Gaston bring the coach around,” he said earnestly, “I think the eels are rising.”

Agatha stared, “What’s wrong with him?”

Violetta extracted a leather roll, which when opened, revealed a collection of small vials. “You were with this fool in Sturmhalten, right?”

Agatha considered this. “…Technically…yes?”

Violetta ignored the hesitancy. “Well, I don’t know what happened, but apparently, after you took off, your evil twin—or whatever she is—went and shot him in the back.”

Agatha gasped. “She did? But I thought he was working with her?”

“According to him,” she nudged Tarvek with her foot, “that was just to keep you alive.”

Tarvek nodded. “Imagine everything is made of pigs!”

Violetta sighed. “Then he gets captured by the Baron and he’s brought to Mechanicsburg and put in the hospital under heavy guard.” She snorted. “Not heavy enough, as it turns out. Here I go and infiltrate the hospital, knock out the guards and what do I find? He’s been poisoned.”

“Poisoned!”

Violetta looked troubled. “I think so. There was a dart. I…I don’t know what it was, but I could tell that it came from another Smoke Knight.”

Agatha looked confused. “Wait a minute, I thought the Smoke Knights were his…are you saying that his own people…?”

Violetta gave a bark of laughter. “If the Baron had made him talk, half of the Fifty Families would have had to leave Europa. Trust me, these guys take the ‘Secret’ part of Secret Society really seriously. Plus, from what little I heard, he was in trouble anyway.” She glanced at Agatha. “There’s a big plan involving a Heterodyne girl, but I’m betting you’re not the one everyone had in mind. Him throwing in with you, no matter what the circumstances, would send them into a panic.”

Agatha frowned. “But…it was an accident.”

Violetta shook her head. “These people don’t believe in accidents.” She patted Tarvek’s head. “And say what you will about this slug, they all know he can weave a plan that looks as natural as the sun coming up.

“No, they know him and our family too well. Everything they touch becomes a nest of snakes eating their own tails.” Violetta was silent for a moment, obviously remembering something unpleasant. She shook herself and turned back to Tarvek. “So I had to get him out of there. I couldn’t carry him, so I had to give him a dose of Moveit Number Six.” She grinned at Agatha. “He was talking my ear off and feeling no pain all the way over here.”

Tarvek jerked upright. “We must stop the moon from eating the mushrooms!” Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell back.

Agatha looked around. “Castle! Is there a medical lab anywhere we can get to?”

“The nearest medical laboratory is thirty meters behind you, down the hallway to the right.”

Agatha blinked. “Well. That’s a stroke of luck.”

Moloch shook his head. “Not really. This place is lousy with medical stuff.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yes,” the Castle confirmed. “When the urge took the Masters to do a little experimentation—say, upon an erstwhile ‘guest’—they didn’t like to have to drag the body very far.”

“That’s horrible!”

Moloch slung one of Tarvek’s arms around his shoulders. “I think it shows a bit of respect for the working man.”

Agatha stared at him.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “Those old Heterodynes wouldn’t have lugged their own bodies about.”

“Not if they could help it,” the Castle admitted.

They entered a small, but remarkably well-equipped facility. There was a row of stone topped benches, several walls covered in storage cabinets fronted with now-cracked laboratory glass, inside of which were rows and rows of jumbled containers. In the middle of the room was a top of the line medical slab. Although it showed obvious signs of disuse, it was still better than Agatha had dared hope to find.

“The Red Playroom,” the Castle announced. “Iago Heterodyne’s favorite.”

Agatha shoved a small pile of rubble off of the slab and indicated that this was where Tarvek should be set down. “Twenty years worth of dust and neglect,” she muttered.

Violetta shrugged. “Everything is still sealed up in jars and there isn’t a lot of leakage.”

Moloch wrestled Tarvek onto the slab with a grunt. Agatha and Violetta started examining him. Moloch found a tap and with a herculean twist, got a stream of filthy water going.

“I can’t use that,” Agatha declared.

Moloch was wetting down some rags and wiping down a table. “The cisterns on the roof are still working. They filter and aerate the water automatically. The pipes are kind of sludgy when they start running, but give ’em a few minutes and they’ll clear out.”

A little less than an hour later, Agatha slumped back, and found a stool positioned to catch her. Before them, Tarvek lay still, but now he looked more relaxed and was warmly swaddled in musty sheets.

“I don’t really think we can do much more for him,” she said flatly.

Violetta shook her head. “Yeah, I think we got him stabilized, but I won’t know what we’re dealing with until I see some more symptoms.” She looked at Agatha with respect. “He never said anything about you being a doctor.”

Agatha shook her head wearily. “I’m not. Oh, back at Transylvania Polygnostic I attended lectures. I observed hundreds of operations and other procedures, but they never let me do anything. I never had any hands-on training.” She glanced over at Tarvek. “But even if I had, I don’t think it would be doing me any good now. I never saw anything like this. He’s still got a fever, that dart wound on his arm is draining green, and he smells terrible.”

Violetta shrugged. “The smell’s pretty normal.”

Agatha stripped off her gloves. “Well I guess he’s getting what he wanted after all. I’m going to find Gil.”

Elsewhere in Castle Heterodyne, Gil stared at the barrels of the guns held in the sweating hands of the false Heterodyne’s minions. It was obvious that, after some of the things that they had seen, they would have cheerfully started shooting at anything. Gil had been briefed on the false Heterodyne’s coterie and he noted that there were now less than half of the number he had been told had entered.

The false Heterodyne herself, resplendent in a pink work outfit, pushed to the fore and glared at him. “Gilgamesh Holzfaller! It is you!”

Gil blinked. The incongruity of the circumstances had prevented him from recognizing her, but now he stammered: “Zola?”

This seemed to throw the girl into a rage. She stomped towards him and began furiously punching him in the arm. “You idiot,” she screamed. “I told you! Didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you?”

Gil frantically tried to understand what she was talking about while blocking her punches. She switched tactics and smartly kicked him in the shins. “I told you to shape up, you dope!”

To his astonishment, Gil saw tears in Zola’s eyes. “Even back in Paris I could see that you were heading for a bad end! And now—!” She waved her arm about. “Here you are in Castle Heterodyne! Caught like a common thug!”

“Actually,” Gil remarked, “to get in here, you have to be a pretty uncommon thug.”

Zola punched his arm again and smiled lovingly up at him. “Well I guess I finally get to help you out for once!” The thought obviously cheered her up immensely. “And I can do it, too! Because…” she paused, “I am the Lady Heterodyne! Surprised?”

Gil made an effort to close his mouth. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

Zola clapped her hands. “Ha! And you thought I was just another chorus girl!”

Gil flashed back to his days in Paris. “No,” he said, picking his words carefully. “I never thought of you as just a chorus girl.”

Zola looked at him fondly. “Well, maybe not you. You were always so nice. But everyone else did! Little did they know that I had a secret!” She spun about in place and hugged herself in delight. “But now they’ll all see just how wrong they were! When I rule Europa I’ll—”

Suddenly she stopped, and examined the rest of Gil’s party. “These people don’t look like prisoners.”

Professor Tiktoffen cleared his throat. “They’re not, my lady. I’ve never seen any of them before.”

There was a dangerous look in Zola’s eye now. “Gil? What’s going on?”

Gil threw up his hands. “All right! All right! Zola, you’re not the only one who had a secret back in Paris.” He looked at her. “It was one that I couldn’t tell anyone! If it had come out, it would have caused a lot of trouble.”

He looked away. “I especially didn’t want you to know. I…I didn’t want you to lose your good opinion of me. It’s just that…” Gil took a deep breath. “I’m a pirate.”

Krosp fell over sideways. Zola pounded a fist into her other palm. “Of course!” She stared at Gil. “It was so obvious!”

Gil frowned. “It wasn’t that obvious.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it! All those mysterious trips! And you always had money!” A knowing look came into her eyes. “And there was that crazy pirate girl you were obviously—”

“Yes! Yes! I should’ve just put a jolly roger on my hat!”

Zeetha leaned in. “Say…Captain. Are you sure we should be admitting all this?” Her hand delicately closed on Gil’s shoulder and without seeming to move, delivered a painful squeeze. “And which pirate girl would this have been?”

Gil managed to pull free without ripping his vest. “You never met her. Sky krakens got her.” He raised his voice, “But it’s all right, me hearties, we’re among friends!” Gil waved to the rest of his company. “Zola, this is my crew! We were in town fencing some machine parts when there was this huge uproar! We grabbed the chance and slipped in here when everyone was busy! I figure there’s got to be something left in here worth stealing!”

Zola’s eyes went wide. “Looting Castle Heterodyne? Are you insane?”

Gil looked contrite. “Well, I didn’t know it was yours.”

Zola shook her head. “No, you idiot! This place is a deathtrap! I’m astonished you’re not dead already!”

Gil glanced around. “But I’m not, am I? It’s obviously all hype. To keep people out.”

Zola looked like she wanted to shake him. “I can’t believe you! This is just like that abandoned toyshop off Place Maubert!⁶⁵ You just waltz into these things without thinking! You don’t even have a plan!”

“Plans,” Gil rolled his eyes. “And I suppose you do.”

“Of course I’ve got a plan!”

Gil sighed. “What is it this time?”

Zola gave him an unfamiliar look. She nodded. “I’ll admit my plans in Paris never worked out. But this one… No. I think I’ll just show you. And this time, I’ll bet you’re impressed.”

So saying, the expanded group headed off. Zola consulted an intricate compass as well as a small, leather-bound book. She was obviously thinking. Gil knew her well enough to let her come to a boil on her own. And indeed, soon enough…

“So, Gil, what do you think about Baron Wulfenbach?”

This was the last subject Gil had been prepared for. “What, personally?”

Zola snorted. “No, of course not. His Empire. The way it’s run.”

Gil tried to consider the question as it would be viewed by someone who was not the Baron’s son. “Better than most, I suppose.”

Zola frowned. “An odd response, considering how they treat pirates.”

Gil laughed. “Zola, there isn’t a legitimate government in the Western Hemisphere that doesn’t deal harshly with pirates. It’s how they treat their own citizens that’s important. The Polar Lords tax fire. The Gilded Duke hunted peasants for sport. To go against Albia of England’s merest whim is literally unthinkable. I’ve been there, Zola. I’ve seen these things.

“The Baron demands taxes and deals harshly with peace breakers, yes, but he’s kept the Long War at bay for years. He builds roads, schools and hospitals…” He saw the look on Zola’s face and shrugged. “I raid elsewhere, but I choose to live in the Empire.”

Zola pursed her lips in annoyance. “I’d forgotten how conversations with you never go like they should.”

Gil grinned. “Oh yes, all those annoying, inconvenient ‘facts.’”

Zola spun and shook her finger in his face. “Well here’s a fact you can stick in your ear. The Baron’s Empire is going down.”

Gil rolled his eyes. “Oooh. I’ll bet that’s the first time he’s heard that…today.” Gil glanced at Zola’s assistants. “And you’re doing this all by yourself?”

Zola surprised him then. Instead of getting even madder, her face slid into a satisfied smile. Now we’re getting somewhere.

“No, I’m not doing it all myself.” She paused, glanced back at the others and drew Gil closer. “How much do you trust your crew?” she asked softly.

Gil spoke equally softly. “They give me lip, but they’re loyal.”

Zola looked back again. “I don’t know…that green-haired girl seems…possessive.” She regarded Gil coyly. “You and she aren’t—?”

“No!” Gil didn’t have to pretend to find the idea disturbing. “Absolutely not. I’m keeping things professional.”

Zola smiled at him a touch wistfully and gently patted his cheek.

“Oh Gil, you never change.” The look she gave Zeetha had a touch of sympathy to it. “And I’ll bet you’re just as clueless.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She raised her voice. “Monsieur Zero?” One of her assistants raised his head. “Please allow us a bit of discretionary space?”

The tall man nodded and brought the rest of the group to a halt while Gil and Zola moved forward a few paces, then allowed them to move again.

“Everything is all very hush-hush, you know,” Zola confided.

“You mean that this is information you don’t want getting back to the Baron.” Gil looked skeptical. “Which is foolish. It’s going to get back eventually, and if it’s that fragile…”

“If I can convince you, would you consider joining me?”

Gil was silent for a few moments. “Maybe.” He raised an admonitory finger. “But I’ll take a great deal of convincing. I like living here.”

Zola nodded. “I trust your judgment. Gil.” She collected her thoughts. “I’m the Heterodyne…”

Gil started a mental list: Flaw Number One.

“And I’m allied with…the Storm King!” When this had no obvious effect upon Gil, she continued. “A direct descendent of Andronicus Valois!”

Gil prepared to throw his list away. “Zola, if the stories about Andronicus are true,⁶⁶ half of Europa…”

“One that the Fifty Families will recognize.”

Gil nodded. “Because he’ll restore their full royal power, no doubt.”

“Of course! The restoration of their traditional rights—”

Gil made a show of losing patience. “Please. They’re fit to rule because their great-grandfathers chopped off more heads than anyone else did?”

“Oh? And how is the Baron any different?”

“Well…for starters, he doesn’t chop off a lot of heads.”

Zola rolled her eyes. “Ha, ha. But what happens when he dies?”

This was unexpected. “Um…”

“His son takes over. So tell me how that’s any different from the Fifty Families, Mister High and Mighty?”

Gil waved his hands. “Wait—this is about the Baron’s son?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about him?”

“I know he’s got the same first name as me, which has made things awkward once or twice… But other than that? Not much, no.”

Zola shook her head. “Where have you been? Yes, the Baron has a son. He’s kept him hidden away and no one knows who the mother is. The Baron has said that he’ll hand him the Empire when he dies. So what do you think will happen then?”

Gil thought about this. “I don’t know. What do people say will happen?”

“It could be the reign of a Neo Caligula!”

Gil frowned. “Oh, come on. Surely it couldn’t be that bad?”

Zola shrugged. “Well that’s the point. No one knows. He’s an enigma. He was revealed four months ago—and then nothing until Beetleburg.”

“Beetleburg?”

“Surely you heard about that. The tyrant of Beetleburg was messing around with a Hive Engine, so the Baron shut him down. Well, this Gilgamesh was there, and by all accounts, he was a complete lunatic. According to witnesses, he killed Beetle by throwing a bomb at him, and Klaus had to chase him down through the streets of the town with clanks and Jägermonsters no less. They say he was practically chewing the furniture.”

Gil listened to this with growing horror. This was an understandable interpretation of that day’s events. “No,” he admitted. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Zola nodded triumphantly, “And the Baron’s had him locked away on board Castle Wulfenbach ever since.”

Gil looked at her bleakly. “There’s got to be more to it than that.”

Zola shrugged. “Perhaps, but that’s what people have seen and heard. The Baron has never cared excessively what people thought about him; he was so powerful that he could just ignore them. That might have worked if he had heirs that were more like him, or even better, no heirs at all. But now that people think that the Empire is going to be given to a crazy person…”

“All right! I see your point.” Gil thought quickly. “So, this plan of yours… Let’s see if I can work out the basics. We have a Heterodyne girl…”

Zola preened. “That’s me!”

“And then…a Storm King shows up.” He smacked his head. “The old prophecy! Sure! They get married! Peace and free beer for everybody.”

Zola clapped her hands. “Oh, I knew you’d see it! You were always so smart.”

Gil didn’t feel particularly smart at the moment. “But… You can’t really think the Baron will allow you to just waltz in and do this?”

Zola looked smug. “You know how to boil a frog, don’t you? You do it slowly. I’ll get settled in as the Heterodyne. Surely there will be nothing wrong with that? Just one of those ‘internal rule’ things that the Baron can’t be bothered with. Even better, I’m not a Spark! I’ll be a safely boring Heterodyne. I’ll busy myself with civic improvements, trade negotiations—my Mechanicsburg will just be good little client state of the Empire.

“A year or so from now, the Storm King’s heir will be ‘discovered’ by a charming old man in Wurms whose hobby is heraldry. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to make an amazing discovery in a used book shop our people run. The College of Heralds will reluctantly agree with his analysis, but the heir-apparent will modestly refuse to accept the crown.

“That will change when Mechanicsburg is attacked by an army of clanks while he is, coincidently, here visiting a wounded friend in the Great Hospital. He will send out a call for help that will be answered by surrounding kingdoms, and he will defeat the invaders. I will ask to meet him, of course, and it’ll be love at first sight!”

She fluttered her eyelashes at Gilgamesh and sighed. “It’ll be so perfectly romantic that we will capture the hearts of all of Europa. Then we will settle down and rule this little town so well that we will be the envy of the Empire and other kingdoms will beg us to move on to bigger things, which we will reluctantly do, and within ten years—sooner if the Wulfenbachs do something foolish—we will have all the Empire and no one has to die at all.”

Gil considered this. He had to admit that he had never really looked forward to being handed the reins of the Empire, but…

He cleared his throat. “Except for young Wulfenbach, of course.”

Zola rolled her eyes, “Well of course. We’re not stupid.”

Gil sighed with regret, “Yes, I suppose that was to be expected.”

Zola frowned. “Oh please, who will even care?”

At that moment there was a strangled scream from Professor Tiktoffen. “Everyone,” he shouted as he ran towards the door. “Out of this room!”

But as he approached the doorway, a massive steel shutter slammed down. “Welcome.” The voice was barely a whisper. “Repairs…here.”

Tiktoffen slumped to the floor. “We’re doomed,” he whimpered. “We’re all going to die.”

Zola strode over to him and kicked him in the leg. “What is happening, Professor?”

Tiktoffen didn’t even flinch when her foot connected. “We’ve been pressganged,” he said leadenly. “I didn’t know where we were. The door we just came through, it’s never led here before.” He gestured towards the shadows and the others realized that the lumps they’d been stepping around were actually desiccated corpses.

“This is one of those rooms where things are too damaged, but the systems in charge won’t accept ‘no’ for an answer. Anyone who comes here isn’t allowed to leave.”

Gil looked at the machinery that lined one of the walls. “Then we’ll just have to fix it.”

Tiktoffen snorted. “This isn’t a broken rudder, young man. This needs a stronger Spark than we’ve ever had in here.”

Gil smiled. “I like a challenge.”

Agatha jerked awake as something sharp poked into her fundament. She was sprawled face down on a workbench. Someone had tossed a musty canvas sheet over her and there was a brisk breeze blowing. The sharp object was revealed as a toasting fork and it was being wielded by Moloch, who was cowering behind a makeshift barricade of assorted sheet metal. “Wake up,” he growled. “C’mon, I thought you were in a hurry. It’s getting light out.”

This got Agatha moving. “It’s what? How could you let me sleep?” It had been nearing midnight as she had put the finishing touches on. She glanced down and found herself clutching a cobbled together little device of some complexity.

From behind his barrier, Moloch flinched. “You said you weren’t going out after Wulfenbach without some kind of defense and then you built a death ray. You conked out on the table, and then, every time I tried to wake you up, you pointed it at me!”

Agatha flushed. Her foster mother, Lilith, had always complained that it took heavy machinery to hoist Agatha from her bed on cold mornings. Luckily, her foster father was a mechanic. But threatening someone? That sounded a bit over-dramatic.

“I threatened you with this?”

“You totally did.”

Agatha looked at it again. “Well I’m sorry this little thing worried you.” At that moment, a strong gust of cold air blew hair into her face. Agatha blinked and turned in surprise. The source was a rather large hole that had apparently been melted through the castle wall. A little way off, she saw another hole through one of the castle towers. She squinted and thought she could just make out a circular chunk taken out of one of the looming mountains that encircled the town.

“…I did that?”

“You totally did!”

Agatha shivered and carefully put the little device down on a table. “What about Tarvek?” She tried to keep her voice neutral but Moloch caught her mood.

“Violetta said that the two of you were afraid that there might be gangrene but neither one of you wanted to say it.”

Agatha swallowed. “I…yes.”

Moloch patted her on the shoulder. “Well, the good news is that I’ve seen gangrene and this ain’t it.”

Agatha felt something inside her relax slightly as she walked towards Tarvek, who lay still and prone. “What’s the bad news?”

Moloch raised the sheet covering him and Agatha gasped. Tarvek was still alive. He was panting and sweat poured off his body. He was a stunning shade of aquamarine.

Moloch shrugged. “He’s definitely got something and I hope you know what it is ’cause we sure don’t.”

At this moment, Violetta came back, carrying a full bucket of water. She put it down, grabbed a cup, filled it, and poked it at Tarvek’s mouth. “He’s been slipping in and out of consciousness for the last hour,” she reported. It was evident from the tone of her voice that she was worried, though she was trying not to show it.

Moloch nodded. “If you’re gonna get Wulfenbach, you’d better do it fast.”

Tarvek moaned.

Agatha leaned over him. “Tarvek?”

He opened his eyes and blearily tried to focus on her face. “Oh Agatha, I’m so sorry.”

Agatha paused. “…For what, specifically?”

“For everything! All that in Sturmhalten! I was so worried. I knew you wouldn’t trust me but the geisterdamen were everywhere and I had to—” He was really getting worked up now and Agatha gently but forcefully pushed him back down onto the tabletop.

“Stop it. You need to rest. I’m off to get Gil to help us, just like you wanted.”

Tarvek surged back up and gripped Agatha’s arms with a surprising strength. “No! Wait! I have to tell you! It’s important! I’ll never find anyone like you.”

Agatha felt her face go red. “Tarvek…”

“I have all sorts of ideas for the most exquisite outfits! You’ll be the envy of Paris!” Agatha blinked, then bent and planted a light kiss upon the top of his head. “Idiot. You’re raving.”

“You see?” Tarvek giggled as his eyes fluttered closed. “Oh, yes, it’s all part of the plan. You’re too perfect…” And he was again unconscious.

Violetta turned away. “Jeez. What a dope. What does she see in him?”

Moloch waved a hand dismissively. “Probably nothing. Now you want to see hot? Wait’ll she meets up with Wulfenbach.”

Violetta frowned. “Hey, don’t let fancy boy fool you. He may want to dress her up but he can be just as interested in undressing her.”

Moloch shrugged. “Yeah? Well, you haven’t seen Wulfenbach when he really loses it. He’ll have her over his shoulder thirty seconds after he sees her. Your boy won’t stand a chance.”

Violetta narrowed her eyes. “You think she’ll put up with that? You wait and see. Tarvek’s a pig but he’s great with the sweet talk.”

“Sweet talk, huh? You got me there. She gets Wulfenbach so worked up he can’t remember his own name. But he’s smart, he’ll learn.” He leaned in and dropped his voice. “’Specially since, when she punches, she puts her hips into it.”

Violetta grinned and leaned in herself. “Ouch,” she breathed in delight. “This should be good. Say…you wanna make a bet on who she’ll pick?”

Moloch assumed the air of a man possessed of a sure thing. “A bet? Might be interesting…but hey… she’s the Heterodyne. Maybe she’ll take them both.”

Violetta went pink at the idea. “Oh please, a boyfriend is an accessory. You don’t go around wearing two hats.”

“Oh yeah? I saw this Jägermonster—”

Hands like steel claws clamped down on both of their throats and lifted them bodily into the air. Agatha, her face scarlet, shook them like a terrier shaking a pair of rats. “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU TWO?” she screamed. “ARE YOU TWELVE?” She flung them to the ground. “Boyfriends? Seriously? I’ve got more important things to worry about! The Baron wants me dead! An imposter is trying to take my place! Armies are trying to take over the town! The Castle is broken and the Other is still inside my head!

“Now, when all that is taken care of, we’ll have a great big fancy party and I’ll wear a pretty dress and I’ll dance with all the boys, and everything will be sugar hearts and flowers, but until then—” She took a deep breath and shouted, “FOCUS!”

Moloch and Violetta huddled on the ground and nodded in unison. Violetta tentatively raised a hand. Agatha glared at her. “What?”

Violetta twisted her hands together and looked imploringly up at Agatha. “This party…Can I have a pretty dress, too?”

Agatha’s fury stopped cold. She looked surprised. “Well…well of course.” Then she turned grim again. “Assuming you’re still alive.”

Several minutes later, Agatha was scrambling over the rubble of what appeared to have once been a trophy hall. The walls were tilted at alarming angles, and the floor was strewn with bric-a-brac and the contents of broken cabinets.

“So…Castle? Gil’s been inside for hours by now. Is he even…I mean, is he all right?”

The voice echoed from all around her. “I am sorry, Mistress. I don’t know.”

Agatha’s mood was still sour. “Why is nothing easy with you?” she growled.

“You want easy? Go live in a yurt,” the Castle said.

Agatha stared blankly at the nearest wall. Not having a physical face or body—at least, in the usual sense—made the Castle a very difficult person to read. “A what?”

“A yurt!” the Castle repeated “A type of portable shelter made of wool felt. Used by the Mongols!”

Well, at least it wasn’t speculating about her love life. “How… fascinating,” Agatha said.

“Yes! The Mongols!” The Castle was getting excited now. Bits of broken metal floated into the air in front and formed a rough tent-like shape. The Castle went on, “Those extraordinary fighters who swarmed out of the East, subduing all that lay before them! Your ancestors learned so much from them!”

“Really.” Agatha didn’t know what to say.

But the Castle did. “Yes! The tactics of battle! The use of superior technology! The art of ruthlessness!”

The makeshift model yurt clattered to the ground. An iron statue of a mounted warrior shot out of a pile of rubble and took its place—hanging in the air in front of Agatha’s nose. She took a quick jump backward. “Ah…” she said. “No kidding…”

The Castle was not finished. “Oh, to see such glorious carnage!” it enthused, its voice rising. “My greatest dream is to be remade as a yurt! To travel! To see the world as a series of battles! To eschew stairways and windows—”

Agatha couldn’t take any more of this nonsense. “What on Earth is the matter with you!” she screamed at the ceiling.

There was a brief silence. Then the Castle spoke again, in a more subdued tone. “I…I…forgive me, mistress.” It sounded confused. “I do not know.”

Elsewhere, at that very moment, Gil was arm deep in the Castle’s machinery. He pulled a small component out of the wall and held it up for Professor Tiktoffen’s approval. “Aha! And here’s another problem!”

They had already made substantial progress. Professor Tiktoffen had proven himself to be an extraordinarily strong Spark in his own right, who had apparently dedicated the last few years to an exhaustive analysis of the Castle’s systems—while Theo and Gil were old friends, and knew how to bring out the best in each other when they worked. Sleipnir was an exemplary mechanic in her own right and was used to working with Sparks. She had also proved invaluable in finding ways to keep Zola, Zeetha, and Zola’s tall men too busy to get in the way or succumb to despair. Even Krosp had proved useful, as his small size had allowed him to squeeze into spaces the others could not.

Still, they had been at work for several hours and, one by one, the others had retired to the other side of the room to get out of the way. Now, only Gil and Professor Tiktoffen crouched before the disassembled panels as the others slept.

“You were right, Professor, we have got everything else connected, but if you look here, you can see a bit of rubble has sheared through a cable! No wonder we couldn’t make it work!”

Tiktoffen looked and then slumped to the ground. “All of those mechanisms are interconnected.” He looked up at the bank of controls. “We’ll have to disassemble the entire wall!”

Gil tapped a dial face. “Maybe not.” He popped open one of his leather waistcoat’s many pockets and pulled out what appeared to be a large watch fitted with little brass arms and legs. “I picked up a little thing in Sturmhalten that might be useful. It’s something a…a friend made.” He thought it prudent not to mention that the friend who made it was, in fact, Agatha. He wound the stem on its top and with a springing noise, the little device jerked into movement. A shutter that should have concealed a watch-face clicked open, revealing a mechanical eye that swiveled up to stare at Gil’s face.

Gil smiled engagingly. “Hello. Do you remember me? I don’t know how much you can understand, but—”

Quick as a flash, the little clank leapt from Gil’s hand and jerked to a halt, swinging from the end of a watch chain. It flailed briefly as Gil hoisted it to eye level, then it simply hung limp, glaring.

After a moment, Gil spoke to Professor Tiktoffen. “This may take a minute, Professor. If you’d like to get something to eat?”

Tiktoffen looked at him blankly. “I’m not sure what we have,” he muttered, “but I confess that I am hungry enough that if I find a particularly soft socket wrench, I’ll take it.”

Once the man was out of earshot, Gil lowered his voice. “Do you want to help your mistress?”

The device looked everywhere but at Gil’s face, but Gil was patient. Eventually, it gave a mechanical click, glanced back at him, and jerked in an attempt at a nod which set it swinging.

Gil lowered it so that its diminutive feet touched a tabletop, but the chain was still attached to his waistcoat. He leaned down until his face was mere centimeters away. “Good. So do I. But if we’re to do that, you have to help me.”

The little clank considered this, then bounced forward and kicked Gil in the nose.

Gil again hoisted it into the air while rubbing his injured face. “There is no question as to who built you, you troublesome gizmo,” he muttered.

“Oho!” Zeetha’s voice mocked him over his shoulder. “Are you saying this thing’s creator is…troublesome?”

Gil frowned. “What? No! Shhhh!” He looked around and saw that they were alone. “Where is everyone?”

Zeetha grinned. “Tiktoffen fell asleep with his head on his tool bag. You work your subordinates hard. Everyone else has been asleep for hours.”

Gil blinked. “Oh. I wondered why it had gotten so quiet.”

Zeetha looked at him curiously. “Yes. Don’t you ever sleep?”

Gil waved a hand. “Oh, my father taught me some mental exercises. I’m good for a couple of days when I have to be.” He glanced up. “You?”

Zeetha shrugged. “I’m good. Ancient Skifandrian warrior discipline—hardly ever taught to outsiders.” She was watching him closely as she spoke, mischief in her voice.

Gil considered this. “My father never said where—”

But Zeetha had already moved on. She pointed over at Zola. “Seems like you knew a lot of girls while you were in Paris.” She made a stern face. “You aren’t one of those Don Casanovas, are you?”

Gil had been called a lot of things, but that had never been one of them. “Um…definitely not.”

“So what’s Pinkie’s story?”

Gil shrugged and sat back, idly twirling the little clank on its chain. “She was a dancer.”

Zeetha looked unimpressed. “A ‘dancer’, eh?”

“That’s what it said on her card.”

“Uh-huh.” Zeetha continued to give him a stony look.

“She sings, too,” Gil added, always helpful.

“Ooh, I’m sure she does.”

“She’s also a decent actress and she was very good at looking interested while people talked and bought rounds of drinks. She was always getting mixed up with some Sparky sap she met in the clubs.”

“Ah. So that’s how you met her. You hired a lot of these ‘dancers’?”

Gil looked pained. “Please. I met her on my first day in Paris, when a giant squid burst up out of the sewer and flung her into the café where I was trying to relax.” Gil sighed. “She was always getting involved with some Spark’s idiotic scheme that was going to change the world. That particular one involved raising calamari steak for the restaurant trade.

“A few weeks later, I rescued her from the Comte de Terracciano’s ‘Ultimate Endgame’ chess set, then the unsettlingly large, acid-spitting snails of Professor Yungbluth, and then some overly-dramatic maniac who was living underneath the Paris Opera House.” Gil paused. “That last one wasn’t even her fault, really.” He shrugged. “Well, after that, she was just someone I knew.”

Zeetha stared at him. “Who had to be rescued a lot.”

Gil shrugged. “Well, she wasn’t boring.”

“She sounds annoying.”

Gil nodded. “Annoying I’ll give you. Then one day, she was gone. Bills paid, all her stuff taken away, no forwarding address…” Gil smiled. “I’d seen that happen before with some of the other girls. They finally hook a rich guy from out of town and get married. The last thing they want is people who knew them coming around to talk about ‘old times.’ They just disappear. If you see them, you’re supposed to pretend you don’t know them and they’ll return the favor. So yeah, I thought she’d got married. But apparently, she turned into ‘the Heterodyne.’”

Zeetha nodded. Actresses and other girls who had worked in the circus had a similar code. Then a thought struck her and her eyes went wide. “You…you don’t think she really is a Heterodyne, do you?”

Gil shook his head. “I don’t, but I’m afraid she might. Every single scheme Zola got caught up in, she was convinced that she was indispensable.

“That fairy tale she spun us? Sure, I’ll believe that’s the plan as she knows it, but there’s a lot more going on here and I want to know what it is. I want to find out who’s running her, if only because I fully expect them to try to kill her.”

Zeetha blinked. “Kill her? But she’s their Heterodyne!”

Gil snorted. “Not any more, she isn’t. This plan of hers is in shambles. My father knows about it. I’m betting those fools that I blew up were her ‘attacking army’—jumping the gun by a couple of years, no less, and Agatha is here, in the castle. There’s no way she’ll let Zola take her place.”

A gentle tug on his hand made him look down. The little clank raised its hands over its head and stared at him woefully. “Oh, you’re ready to help? Good.” He lifted the little device up to the hole in the wall. It squeezed itself in and Gil began feeding out its chain as he continued.

“No, it’s over, and while Zola may not know it, the people at the top undoubtedly do. She’s become a liability. She knows things my father will want to know.” He sighed. “Besides, this place is dangerous all by itself. I’m not going to just leave her to die in here. I’m not thrilled about having one more thing to worry about, but I don’t see what else I can do.”

Zeetha drummed her fingers. “She sounds like an idiot.”

Gil shrugged. “Well…yes, but she was never a malicious one.”

“Is that important?”

Gil made an odd, angry face. “Heavens, yes. If I let everyone I thought was an idiot die, there wouldn’t be many people left.”

Zeetha thought about this and shivered. “Oh.”

Meanwhile, within the panel in the walls, the little clank had successfully resolved a problem involving force and pressure. It emerged, proud of itself, dragging a sliver of the stone wall.

“Ha!” Gil examined the rock chip. “I knew you could do it!” He put his eye up to the gap and examined the scene before him. “Yesss… That debris sheared right through the cable. We got everything else, so…” He turned to Zeetha. “Go wake up Higgs, Theo, Sleipnir, and Krosp. Quietly.”

“What for?”

“You’re leaving.”

“Oh really? How?”

Gil raised a finger. He set the little clank on his palm and addressed it directly. “I’m stuck here for a while but I want my friends to go find Agatha and help her. They can’t leave until we get that door open. You can do that. Follow those red cables to the left and you should be able to access the door mechanism.”

The little device stared at him and then tugged pointedly at the chain.

Gil continued. “I realize that the chain will be a problem. So it’s a question of trust.”

The little clank gave a drawn out clicking that sounded to Gil like a raspberry.

“You don’t like me? Fine.” Gil snapped open a hook and the chain came free. The little clank was all attention. “But this will help Agatha, if you do it quickly. Do you understand?”

The little clank lashed out and biffed Gil in the nose before leaping off his hand. Quick as a flash, it vanished back inside the huge mechanism inside the Castle wall.

Gil rubbed his nose and leaned in close to the opening. “Does that mean you’ll do it?” He turned to Zeetha and shrugged. “I’ll take that as a ‘maybe.’”

Zeetha nodded. “The others are up and moving. You’re really not coming?”

“No. Tiktoffen did a lot of talking tonight. Zola’s got…something. She thinks it will shut down the castle. That’s the last thing we want, so I’m going to find out what it is and disable it. Plus, Zola’s giving me more information than she thinks she is, so it’s worth keeping an eye on her.”

Zeetha smirked. “Old habits die hard, eh?”

“Yes, yes.” Gil paused. “Um…Look…when you see Agatha, please tell her…” Zeetha looked expectant. “Um…tell her I am…ah…anxious to speak to her so that we can overcome our mutual obstacles.”

Zeetha looked like she was experiencing actual physical pain. “No.”

“What?”

“That sounds moronic. Try again.”

Gil looked lost. “Um…Then…Then tell her that I’m pretty sure that I’m fond of her, and that if it’s mutual and she’s not too evil, perhaps we can—”

“NO!” This was delivered with a sharp slap to the side of Gil’s head.

“Ow! Why are you hitting me? I love her and I want to help her!”

Zeetha lowered her fist and smiled. “Now that I’ll pass along.”

Gil frowned. “But…that’s so imprecise!”

“I’m going to hit you again.”

“Hey!” Krosp tugged his trouser leg and pointed. “The door is opening!” He darted under the slowly rising gate and stuck his head back in. “It’s clear!”

“Get moving,” Zeetha told Theo and Sleipnir. “I need to get something.”

Airman Higgs ambled up to Gil and considered him for a moment. “Sure you don’t want me to stay with you, sir?” He jerked a thumb over to the remaining sleepers. “That lot might get kind of mad when they see we’re gone.”

Gil smiled. “Why, thank you, Mr. Higgs, I appreciate the offer. But this will work better for me if you’re all gone.”

“Okay.” Zeetha reappeared. “I’m all set. Let’s go.” She was wearing one of the long coats and tunics worn by Zola’s assistants.

“Where did you—?”

“Oh, I smacked goon number three with a wrench. I can get a guy undressed really fast.”

“Why would you risk—?”

“Cold.” Zeetha hoisted the edge of her tunic. “You wanna see these goosebumps?”

Gil’s face went scarlet. “No! Get going!”

Zeetha grinned and gave him an affectionate hug. “Good luck, kiddo.” And a moment later, she and the others were gone.

Gil rested a while, examining the exposed machinery of the wall. Really, all that was left was to repair that sheared cable. He selected a tool and reached into the wall, muttering to himself: “Okay, I just have to hook this end here…argh, this is tricky—onto this bit… and—” An electrical crackling split the air and a blinding flash of energy knocked him back several feet where he landed with a crash against the decorative metal wall panels that had been laid aside. Zola and all her men were instantly awake.

The Castle made an appreciative noise. Agatha looked up. “Ah! My Lady, I believe I have found your other young man.”

“How is he?”

“He appears to be slightly singed. Ah, but never fear, I see there are other young men as well. My my! I shall reopen the old harem quarters!”

“Not you, too! Will you please—” Agatha realized that the Castle was quietly chuckling. She paused. While mechanisms advanced enough to posses a sense of humor were extremely rare, they were not unheard of.⁶⁷

“Ha, ha,” she said, giving up. “Just keep them…contained until I get there. All right?”

“I cannot. A connection has been made which has extended my awareness, but that is all.”

“How annoying.”

“You have no idea,” the Castle complained. “I will guide you part of the way, but beyond the Serpent’s Gallery, I will be unable to talk with you.”

Agatha sighed. “Another dead area?”

“Oh, no. It is quite active. I am currently attempting to take control, but there is a fragment of my personality already occupying the area. Because I am damaged, that part of me will most likely not recognize you as the Heterodyne. In addition, I fear that it may be quite insane.”

Agatha tried to keep her face neutral. “You think so? That’s… worrying.”

“There is one bright spot though; I believe I can reassimilate it, and during the process, it will probably be too busy fighting back to hinder you much.”

“‘Probably’? ‘Much’?”

“I can’t guarantee your safety, of course.” The Castle sounded completely unconcerned. “I recommend that you retrieve your young man and return to a safe location as quickly as possible. Still, it should be all right…as long as nothing else goes wrong with my mechanisms.”

Deep within the castle’s walls, the newly-freed pocket clank surveyed the expanse of inert machinery and rubbed its little brass hands together. So much to be done! And so much to do it with!

Gil opened his eyes. His head was filled with that familiar tingling he always got after contact with ungrounded electricity. The first thing he saw was one of Zola’s minions, clad in short pants and a simple grey singlet, rubbing a bump on the back of his head. He was pointing a nasty little black pistol in Gil’s general direction. “I say we kill him,” the man was snarling.

Zola stood before him, unarmed but without fear. Playing the adventuress to the hilt, Gil realized with a touch of admiration.

“Don’t be absurd. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Besides,” she waved a hand, “he’s obviously useful. He got the door open, didn’t he?”

They both noticed that Gil was awake and Zola frowned at him.

“Your ‘loyal crew’, on the other hand, appears to have deserted you. Why?”

Gil rubbed his head. “How should I know? I guess they’re just not as tough as your guys.”

As he’d thought, this statement mollified the angry man slightly. “At one point, I got the door open halfway. They wanted to leave you behind, and when I wouldn’t go, they got mad.” He ruefully rubbed the back of his head. “I didn’t think they were that mad, but after that, things went black and here we are. We should get out of here as quick as we can.”

Professor Tiktoffen spoke up. “He’s right, we should get moving. I wouldn’t worry about those fools. They were too far back to hear anything when the two of you were talking and I’ll be surprised if the Castle doesn’t crush them, if it hasn’t already.”

He leaned in. “It was that Zeetha girl, I’ll bet. She must’ve seen how it was between you and young Gil here and realized she didn’t have a chance, if you know what I mean.”

Instantly Zola’s trepidation vanished. “Of course!” She turned to Gil. “You always were completely clueless when it came to women. And this certainly isn’t the first time its bitten you, is it?”

Gil would have liked to argue, but he really couldn’t. Zola nodded in satisfaction. “I could tell she had her eye on you. I knew it as soon as I saw her.” She clapped her hands. “All right everyone, grab your equipment and let us be off!”

Gil slowly packed his equipment back into his satchel. When he looked up, Professor Tiktoffen was handing him a wrench.

“Thank you, professor.”

“It’s the least I could do…sir.” The sudden use of the honorific caused Gil to pause and look closely at the man.

Tiktoffen nodded slightly. “I like to think that I’m rather good at knowing what to do—or say—in order to keep things moving smoothly.”

Gil realized this was not about handing him the wrench. “Is that so?”

Tiktoffen nodded again as he stood up. “Oh yes, sir,” he said quietly. “It’s one of the reasons why I was chosen to be the one to report to your father.”

Gil blinked and glanced over towards Zola.

“Have no fear, sir,” Tiktoffen breathed. “I’ll keep your secret. I’m very good at that, I assure you.” And with that, he turned away.

Gil, not reassured at all, stared after him until Zola took his arm and led them all out. “I knew you could do it,” she said. “You’re always so handy to have around.”

“I’d probably be even more useful if I knew more about what you’re doing in here.”

Zola nodded. “That does make sense.” She called out to Tiktoffen. “What am I going to do, Professor?”

The professor fished a small device from a pocket and consulted it. His eyebrows rose. “Have a party, I think,” he said in a distracted voice.

Gil wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly. “A party?”

“Oh yes! A party!” Zola smiled dreamily as they moved off down the hallway. “Once I’m settled in as the Heterodyne, I shall have a big, fancy party! I shall wear a beautiful gown and I shall dance with the heads of Europa and all the handsome men—” She tightened her grip on Gil’s arm. “But mostly with you, of course.”

Gil wondered if she had gone mad. None of the others seemed to think this conversational turn an odd one, which was surprising, and Zola prattled on nonstop for almost ten minutes until they entered a new corridor and Tiktoffen, who had been monitoring the device in his hand, interrupted a nuanced description of her plans for Gil’s party outfit, down to the number of pearl buttons on his cloth-of-gold pants. “We’re safe, my lady.”

Instantly, Zola stopped talking. She took a deep breath. “Thank goodness.”

With a start of surprise, Gil resurfaced from the pit of abstract mathematical conundrums into which he had long ago retreated. “Safe? Safe from what? The fashion police?”

Tiktoffen chuckled. “The Castle. We’re in a dead zone now. Before, there was a distinct possibility that it could hear every word we said.”

A prickle of uneasiness flowed through Gil’s mind. He turned to Zola. “You mean—all that party stuff…”

Zola gave him a patient look. “I want the Castle to underestimate me. Surely you didn’t as well?”

Gil kept his mouth shut and looked guilty.

This delighted Zola, who patted Gil’s cheek. “So here’s what’s going on. For a long time my associates have been trying to figure out how to get control of Castle Heterodyne.”

“Wait,” Gil interrupted. “Who are these associates?”

“Oh, the Storm King’s Loyal Order of the Knights of Jove.”

Gil snorted. “Right. And England’s Knights of the Round Table are right behind them, I’ll bet.”

Zola laughed. “You can’t imagine! They are so old-fashioned! But they’re deadly serious!”

“And you’re telling me that the Knights of Jove have stuck around all this time.”

“Oh yes! They’re a secret society, you know. It’s very exciting. They’ve been seeking out and keeping track of the royal lineage, but the time was never right.”

“Uh-huh. Let me guess. A long line of sots, imbeciles, and—God forbid—females, right?”

Zola laughed again. “As well as at least one reported werewolf.”⁶⁸

“Well that’s the problem with monarchies, isn’t it? They just never can make ’em like they used to.”

Zola shrugged. “Yes, well, that was before the Mongfish family took a hand in things.”⁶⁹

Gil was surprised. “Mongfish—like the last Heterodyne’s wife?”⁷⁰

“Of course. The qualities of candidates aside, for a long time the order itself had…stagnated. It became an excuse for the old boys to get together, drink brandy, and go on about ‘the good old days of yore.’ Completely fossilized. No fire at all.”

Gil bit his lip. Now that he thought about it, he had seen the Knights of Jove on a list of assorted drinking clubs and fringe cabals that the Empire knew existed. Obviously, this list was in desperate need of a reevaluation. “And the Mongfish family?”

“They got the Order whipped into shape, and then, well, they are very gifted, especially when it comes to the biological disciplines.”

Gil nodded. “So I’ve heard.”⁷¹

“Well, they just made sure that there was an appropriate heir.”

Gil made a face. Zola shrugged. “Oh, nothing too unnatural, they just insisted on things like arranging marriages that produced family trees with actual branches.”

Gil nodded. Royalty did tend to have its little traditions.

Zola continued. “Anyway, these days the High Council has Sparks working for the Order on all kinds of things—and one of the biggest is this place.” She waved a hand indicating the Castle. “If I’m going to be acknowledged as the Heterodyne, I’ve got to hold the Castle. But it’s broken and insane. It won’t listen to anybody. We’ve had brilliant people working on it for ages, trying to find a way to control it, but nothing has worked.”

She turned and faced Gil. “Well recently, they made this huge breakthrough. The Castle isn’t just one entity.”

“What?” The look on Gil’s face satisfied her. “Yes, I thought a clever boy like you would find that interesting. As best they can determine, it’s split into something like twelve different minds, each of which controls a small section, thinks that it alone is the ‘real’ Castle-mind, and they are all working against each other at cross-purposes.”

“Fascinating,” Gil breathed. His brain was working furiously.

“Isn’t it?” Tiktoffen chimed in. “This is a priceless opportunity!”

“I’m sure,” Zola said dismissively. “But now we’re out of time. I have to take over as Heterodyne quickly. We no longer have the luxury of trying to control the Castle, but we have found a way to kill it.”

“That is a mistake!” Professor Tiktoffen burst out. “We need more time, yes, but we have made progress! With this information we could—”

Zola cut him off. “Yes, yes, I know. I’ve read your reports. ‘A priceless antiquarian thinking engine that could teach us about the very nature of consciousness and rational thought—blah blah blah.’”

“But it is,” Tiktoffen screamed in frustration.

Zola turned and regarded him fondly. “You Sparks are all alike. I promise you, Professor, when this is all over, you can take whatever parts you want and build yourself a chatty little gazebo somewhere.” The smile left her face and her voice hardened. “But today, Castle Heterodyne dies.”

Gil raised his eyebrows. “And you’re going to do this, how?”

Tiktoffen sighed and led them through a thick wooden door. They stepped into a large room filled with people and the sound of activity. The largest group was gathered around a brass pedestal set with blue glass spheres. It was slightly taller than the men who stood beside it and surrounded by a nest of cables and tools. All of the people in the room paused to stare at the newcomers as they entered. With a shiver, Gil realized that several of the more exceptional Sparks that his father had sentenced to service in the Castle were gathered in this room.

Zola indicated the device. “How will I kill the Castle? Simple. With this.”

Gil examined the device and felt another jolt of unwelcome surprise. Many of these parts would have required sophisticated manufacturing processes. He turned to Professor Tiktoffen. “Surely some of these components weren’t manufactured in the Castle. How did you get them in without anyone noticing?”

The professor shrugged nonchalantly but it was obvious that he appreciated the chance to brag a bit. “Patience, mostly. Now, some parts were here already—the old Heterodynes kept all sorts of useful machines—but it was easy enough to slip a little something extra in occasionally with the supply shipments. It wasn’t particularly difficult, since the Baron allows almost everything we ask for anyway.”

Zola now addressed a tall, intense man. “What is our status, Professor Diaz?”

The man scowled. “It is not yet ready, Señorita.”

“That is not what I wanted to hear.”

The professor made an exaggerated expression of dismay with his hands. “¿No? My heart, it weeps.”

Zola narrowed her eyes and her voice grew cold. “It might. What is the problem?”

Diaz snapped his fingers and a minion dragged another prisoner out from a side room. Despite the fact that he had obviously been worked over by someone who knew what they were doing, the man in manacles wore an arrogant smile. A long scar marred his face. “This cucaracha,” Diaz snarled, “has been intercepting the shipments. Not all of them, but he has managed to collect several of the parts that we need.”

The man’s grin widened. “That’s right, girlie. And that means that you gotta deal with me to get them!”

Zola’s expression was cold. “I see.” Smoothly, she took out her little pistol and fired a round through the man’s kneecap.

He screamed and dropped to the ground. Zola strode over to him and kicked his hands away from where they clutched at the wound. She placed her foot squarely on the shattered knee, leaned in, and tapped the barrel against the man’s head. “The question is, just how much of you will I have to deal with before I hear what I like?” She ground her foot down.

“In the cistern,” the man shrieked. “There’s an oilskin bag in the cistern!”

Zola straightened up and waved her hand. The man was dragged off, whimpering.

As Zola holstered her gun, she caught the look on Gil’s face. She looked grim. “My patience only stretches so far,” she said.

_______________

⁵⁷ After the Incredibly Brief Rebellion (two minutes, thirty-six seconds), Queeg Heterodyne had faced a bit of a problem. Family tradition dictated that the people of Mechanicsburg were not to be indiscriminately slain—but a rebellion had to be punished. His decree, although directly harming none, would ensure that the townspeople suffered torture and misery for generations.

⁵⁸ Stutter-Step, despite its obvious roots in Jewish Klezmer and African tribal rhythms, was, in fact, invented by a musically gifted construct named Two-Point-Five-Footed Fritz. Who was the house pianist in a Mechanicsburg brothel. Sadly, there are no known portraits of Fritz and thus the origin of his unusual name remains a source of pointless speculation.

⁵⁹ Double-Fortified Lingonberry Snap was possibly the most potent alcoholic beverage in Europa at this time. It was crafted by a complicated process that involved distillation, freezing, the application of mildly hallucinogenic fungi, and aging in specially seasoned stone crocks (which significantly cut down on the batches lost due to spontaneous combustion). Astonishingly, it was invented not by a Spark, but by a little old man in Switzerland who drank an Imperial Liter of the stuff every day, lived to one hundred and thirty-three, and whose funeral pyre burned uncontrollably for three days.

⁶⁰ People who refused to listen to technical experts didn’t last long in the armies of the Empire.

⁶¹ At this time, Imobilex jugs were state of the art portable containment units used to transport dangerous materials such as unstable chemicals or potential explosives.

⁶² Empire records for the year in question do not show the Vespiary Squad active in Belgrade, but one of the sergeant’s grandchildren does live there, so the chance that the sergeant was visiting during the incident of the Three Sewer Golems, which was highly publicized at the time, while coincidental, is not at all unlikely.

⁶³ When the Wulfenbach Empire had to take down a rebellious Spark, the official policy was to welcome the defeated Spark’s constructs and experimental subjects into the forces of the Empire. Most of them leapt at the chance to be part of a large organization that actually saw to their well-being. Plus, it offered them a chance to punch Sparks, and get paid for it.

⁶⁴ Othar Tryggvassen has put forth the revolutionary hypothesis that Sparks are responsible for most of the war, death, and assorted chaos in the world, and wishes to test this by eliminating all Sparks and seeing if the world actually improves. The only awkward part of this is that Othar is a rather strong Spark in his own right, but he has promised that when he has eliminated all of the other Sparks from the world, he will also kill himself. Ironically, many Sparks are conflicted about this, as his hypothesis is compelling, his methodology seems sound, and many argue that it would be a valid experiment.

⁶⁵ Deep within the Paris Department of Justice, there is a vault full of locked files under the personal seal of the Master of Paris. One of them is labeled “The Maubert Wind-Up Assassin Affair.” It occupies a rather full shelf dedicated to the after-school activities of one G. Holzfaller.

⁶⁶ At an impressionable age, young Andronicus read a number of scholarly works that talked about a king being a fertility symbol. He thought this was a mighty fine idea.

⁶⁷ There was an appreciable gap between what fragile, organic humans and cold, crystal intelligences found “funny.” This problem resulted in a great deal of death and destruction until the Spark Simon van Stampfer created the Stroboscope and produced the first electromagnetic kinetic-projection of a cat attempting to catch its own tail. Once a baseline for humor appreciation was established, human/machine relations improved greatly.

⁶⁸ It happens in even the best families.

⁶⁹ The Mongfish family, rich in Sparks and steeped in evil as a means to an end, have woven their schemes behind the scenes throughout Europa’s history.

⁷⁰ Certainly the capper to the Heterodyne’s meddling in the affairs of the House of Mongfish had to be Bill Heterodyne’s wooing and marrying Lucifer Mongfish’s favorite daughter, Lucrezia. At the very least, the holidays were an awkward time for all concerned.

⁷¹ Zola is understating things. Cain Mongfish’s masterpiece, A Reasoned Diatribe Regarding thee Methods and Required Madnesses Towards the Manipulation of ye Stuffe of Life and thee Entertaining Consequences Thereof and How Best to Avoid Them is regarded as the seminal work that gathered and codified all of the then-known processes for reanimating, bending, warping, and subjugating life as we know it. Cain died while researching a sequel, which according to his notes was to be entitled How to Promote and Manipulate thee Natural Fealty and Gratitude That Thine Creation Will Express Towards Thou, Their Creator. For some reason, that never works.