by Phil Foglio
Gil stared at him in horror. “Why didn’t you tell my father?”
“Because I didn’t know! I only found out when he tried it on my sister Anevka after she broke through! I had to build her an entirely new body! By that time, I had long been exiled from Castle Wulfenbach and any loyalty I might have to your father’s unjust and capricious regime had long evaporated.” Gil frowned and hit a switch. “But—” and here Tarvek was the one to look away, years of inner conflict roiling through his memory. “But I was sickened by the waste. All of those sparks. All of those women who might have done something amazing.”
He shrugged. “By this time, it had been years. Even my father was beginning to flag in his fanaticism.” Tarvek sighed. “Or so I thought. I tried to—subtly, of course—steer him away from his obsession, but he surprised me. Despite any outward dithering, he remained Lucrezia’s slave to the core. He must have said something to the Geisterdamen because they began to turn against me. Lady Vrin was convinced I was working against Lucrezia’s interests, which, to be fair, I was.
“The Storm King’s plan was my ticket out of there. Once I was established, it would have been simple to clean house. Naturally, their plan was a mess, but I could have worked with it. I could have used them to further my own plan, and it would have all gone perfectly!
“Then Agatha showed up, and it was like fate! It was as if the heavens themselves were saying ‘Yes! This will work!’ Instead of a fake Heterodyne girl, here was a real one and she was wonderful! It was all going so well . . . That should have warned me, but no . . .
“Then my father was killed. When I tried to get Agatha out of Sturmhalten, the Geisterdamen caught her, put her in the machine, and installed Lucrezia.”
He wound down and stared blankly ahead for long enough that Gil had to prompt him. “Then what?”
Tarvek sighed. “I thought Agatha was dead. That Lucrezia was in control permanently. I . . . I didn’t think of her as I do now. Not quite. I mean, she was too perfect. Together we could have . . . ” He paused again. “But like I said, I thought she was gone.
“The Geisters still didn’t trust me. If I hadn’t moved quickly, they would have killed me. I sucked up to Lucrezia outrageously. It’s what she expects people to do. She loves it. Needs it. She let me live while I flattered her, but I knew that wouldn’t last forever. I had to actually make myself useful if I was going to survive.
“So I assisted her. Because of my knowledge of my father’s work, I already had enough of the basic principles. As we worked, I learned a lot more; certainly more than she thought she was teaching me. She’s insanely proprietary about her secrets, but she was in a hurry and incredibly fatigued. Even so, I have no doubt she would have killed me when she was more secure. She did try to, in Balan’s Gap when your father attacked.” Tarvek paused. “That was very well done, by the way. I knew something like it would happen, but still . . . ”
“Lucrezia,” Gil prompted.
“Yes. As I said, she was very tired. She knew she didn’t have a lot of time and she pushed herself to extreme limits. I . . . I really got the impression she had forgotten what limits there are to a human body. Things she said . . . ” He waved that line of speculation aside. “The important thing was that when she had pushed things too far, she collapsed, and Agatha resurfaced.
“I was astonished. I had no idea Agatha was still in existence. She couldn’t maintain control for long, but whenever her personality manifested, we worked together to try to get a message to the Baron. That giant image over Sturmhalten? That was her idea.”
“I didn’t get to see that,” Gil said with regret. “I heard she was wearing this outfit . . . ”
Tarvek grinned. “She was beautiful.”
“I also heard she accused my father of being the Other.”
The smile slid off of Tarvek’s face. “Ah. Yes. Well, That wasn’t actually Agatha, you know.”
Gil’s eyes narrowed. “Of course not. You did that. You must have tampered somehow. Agatha would have told the truth, and Lucrezia would have destroyed any message that mentioned the Other.”
Tarvek thought about lying, but the first rule of lying was in knowing when you had a shot at getting away with it. “Yes.”
Gil regarded him silently. Tarvek half expected him to lunge for him again. And I can’t say he isn’t entitled, he thought to himself. Instead, Gil sat back slightly, staring at the console.
“And you say you can free Agatha?”
Tarvek nodded slowly. “Not . . . not immediately. But with what I already knew of Lucrezia’s work, plus what I learned from her in Sturmhalten, and with access to the lab we saw downstairs, I’m confident I can remove Lucrezia from Agatha’s mind.” Gil looked up and opened his mouth to speak, but Tarvek interrupted. “And be able to provide enough evidence that I can prove it to your father.” He thought for a minute. “Actually, I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t have him present for the procedure.” He glanced at Gil. “If we could trust him to not try to blow everything up.”
Gil looked thoughtful. “I think I can guarantee that. He’d be more interested in verifying the procedures and learning as much as he can about what Lucrezia’s done. After all, he is a known connoisseur of spark styles.57 Or is that too villainous?”
Tarvek refused to take the bait. “There you are,” he said primly. “I’m not saying Lucrezia isn’t a terrifying lunatic or that her wasps are anything less than horrific. It’s simply that I, as a scientist, can appreciate the elegance of her designs”
Gil nodded reluctantly. “True. And I guess even you wouldn’t want that to happen to Agatha.”
A shudder went through Tarvek. Memories coursed through him: the terrible sense of loss when he had thought Agatha was gone. And his father’s laboratory, the work his family had spent their lives on. How many people had they destroyed over all that time? How much of that was he, personally, responsible for? He felt ill. “No,” he said slowly. “Of course not! It shouldn’t happen to . . . well, to anybody.”
He went silent, lost in thought. Gil looked solemn, watching his controls, but not actually seeing them. A shout from above reminded them they had, once again, forgotten what they were doing, and could they please move the squid about eight meters down the hallway to the next spot that needed repairs?
They scrambled to obey.
Outside the Castle, evening was falling across Mechanicsburg. Inside the Great Hospital lights were being dimmed and the few visitors who had been allowed, even with the Baron’s residency, were being gently but firmly shooed out. In one of the intensive care wards, a long double row of patients, many of them connected to gently whispering devices, were completely failing to appreciate the gift of entertainment that had been offered to them.
Standing on a chair in the center of the room, a humble storyteller concluded an enthralling narrative that had taken a great deal of time and effort to uncover. “ . . . and thus, the evil princess was defeated and the foolish wizard was saved!”58
Gentle snores were the only response. That and a soft clapping from a smiling nurse. “Thank you so much,” she said, removing something from her ears. “It’s always best for the patients if they can sleep drug-free.” She pulled a small envelope from her apron and handed it over. “Doctor Sun said if you’d like a residency—”
The storyteller sighed. “Thank you, but—”
At that moment Captain Bangladesh DuPree peeped around the corner. Anyone who knew her would have been astonished. Captain DuPree seldom entered a room unaccompanied by an excessive amount of decibels. As it happened, a serene, avuncular chat with Doctor Sun about the need for quiet around patients, delivered while he was casually paring down a block of marble with his fingertips, seemed to have gotten the point across. Seeing the storyteller, she snapped her fingers. “Hey! Is that the boring guy?”
The nurse nodded. “Oh yes.”
“Fantastic! Hey, boring guy! I got a job for you!” She beckoned the storyteller to follow her.
/>
The storyteller was a patient man who was used to this sort of treatment. He sighed and adjusted his hat. They strode down hushed hallways softly lit except around the occasional nurse station or guard post. To his surprise, they turned into an unfamiliar corridor. He attempted to make conversation. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in this part of the hospital before.”
“Don’t act stupid and we’ll let you leave it.”
Ordinarily, this would be what we in the storytelling business call a “conversation stopper,” but the storyteller caught a strange note in her voice. The captain was worried about something. This, given what rumor had told him of her character, was astonishing. He also knew, instinctively, that mentioning this would be unwise in the extreme.
They turned a corner and came to a fully staffed checkpoint. No less than six guards and two towering Wulfenbach military clanks stood before them. The captain stepped up. A password and countersign were exchanged sotto voce. A cloaked officer in a cap fashioned from a slaver wasp skull stepped up and presented a fuzzy cat-sized animal with an unusual amount of legs. Its back was orange and its belly was fluffy and white, it looked like something between a weasel and a caterpillar. It snuffled at the captain for a moment, then chirped happily. The officer swiveled it to face the storyteller. The beast wuffled at his coat and snorted, then wrinkled its pointy snout and retched, before disappearing into the officer’s cloak. The officer scratched his head. “Clean, I guess.”
The captain nodded and jerked a thumb. The storyteller followed her. “Now, he never sleeps much anyway,” she said, breaking the quiet. “And he’s in a funny mood, so do the best you can or I’ll slice your liver out.”
They had stopped in front of another door that was again flanked by a pair of guards. A nagging suspicion gripped the storyteller’s gut. “Wait. Who is it you’re taking me to?”
The captain looked at him and sighed in exasperation. “The Baron, you fool. Make him get some sleep.” She gently opened the door.
From within, the Baron’s voice emerged. Commanding as it was, it held undertones of exhaustion. “DuPree, if you come in here, I will kill you WITH THE POWER OF MY MIND!”
Captain DuPree froze, her hand still on the door handle. She glanced at the storyteller and nervously licked her lips. “I . . . ” she whispered, “I’m pretty sure he can’t really do that.” Faster than his eye could follow, she darted out her hand, grabbed the storyteller’s coat lapel, and slung him into the room. “So get in there!” She slammed the door behind him.
Within, ensconced in an astonishing nest of burbling medical apparatus, the ruler of the Wulfenbach Empire glowered like a caged animal. He was swathed in bandages. Assorted tubes and catheters festooned the hospital bed. The eyes in his relatively undamaged face followed the storyteller’s every move.
Behind him, a nurse sat in the shadows, a small book on her lap.
After gawping for several seconds, the storyteller whipped off his hat and executed a formal courtier’s bow. “Good evening, Herr Baron.”
“Is it? Tell me what they are saying in town.”
“Me? But—”
“You are a man of the streets. You have to know when to tell another story and when to cut and run.”
There was a great deal of truth to this, but there were also numerous proverbs about telling truth to power. The storyteller hesitated. The Baron frowned. “I’ve had reports of you. Flatter me or lie, and I’ll know.”
The storyteller sighed. “Everyone knows there is a new Heterodyne. They’re just waiting to see if it’s the coffee one or the pink one.”
“What is Burgermeister Zuken59 saying?”
The storyteller blinked. “Um . . . I don’t know, but . . . why would anyone care?”
The Baron nodded. “Very good. And what are they saying about me?”
The storyteller considered this, then shrugged. “You’re sick. You’re dying. You’re dead. You’re going to destroy the Castle. You’re going to marry the Heterodyne. She’s your daughter. You built her. You’re here to support her. She’s a trap to draw out your enemies. You’re here to kill her. You’re here to turn over the empire. You’re actually Barry Heterodyne. You’re a construct. You’re the Other. You’re bankrolling one of the Heterodyne girls. You’re bankrolling both of the Heterodyne girls because you want to see who wins. The winner will marry your son. You really like waffles. You . . . ”
The storyteller’s voice was growing faint. “Breathe in,” the Baron commanded sharply.
The storyteller sucked in a huge lungful of air and wiped his forehead. “Thank you, Herr Baron.”
Klaus rolled his eyes. “And the mood on the street?”
“Tense. Waiting.”
“For something good or something bad?”
The storyteller shrugged. “That depends on who you talk to.”
Klaus’ eyes narrowed. “And you?”
“There is a reason I’m hiding here in the hospital, Herr Baron.”
The Baron nodded slowly. “Yes . . . ” He thought for a second. “Now, as to why you’re here . . . ”
“Ah! A story! Of course! So, listen, this duck walks into a bar—”
The Baron peremptorily held up a hand. “Wait. I had something else in mind. A story of the Storm King.”
The storyteller rubbed the stubble on his chin as he ran through the catalog in his head. “Oh. Of course. Let’s see . . . There’s the one about how the Muses were stolen—and the king won them back in a pie-eating contest?”
The Baron blinked. “What? No.”
The storyteller waved a hand. “No, of course not. That’s for children, really . . . and the Baker’s Guild . . . ” He drew himself up. “You, uh . . . you can’t mean the one where he seduces the Thousand Wives of the Moon. ’Cause that’s Harvest Festival stuff, and whereas I know we’re both men of the world, as it were, it doesn’t seem appropriate . . . ”
“Of course not!”
The storyteller’s breath caught, and he furtively looked over his shoulder before leaning in. “You . . . ” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You don’t mean the one about how he was brought down by the Heterodyne Girl?”
Klaus actually smiled. “No.”
“Good! I could get into real trouble telling that one in this town.”
The Baron nodded sympathetically. “I imagine so. No, do you know the one about how he became king?”
“Of course! The Queen of the Mines and the Lamp That Summoned the Night!” The storyteller rubbed his hands together. “Good summer solstice story.”
The Baron shook his head. “No, not that one. The other one.”
The storyteller paused. “Ah, yes, the other one. The other one . . . ” He frowned. “Huh. Why I haven’t told that one in . . . ” A look of surprise crossed his face. “Never. I don’t know another one.”
The Baron raised his brows. “Really? Well, you should. Let me tell it to you.”
And so he did:
“In those days. There was no shortage of evil wizards. The worst of them all was Prince Clemethious, patriarch of the dreaded Heterodynes, a family of monsters so fearsome they were only spoken of in whispers. Clemethious was known for his wicked sense of humor. It was said that he always smiled, even as he slept, because he dreamed each night of new horrors to unleash upon his hapless enemies.
“After years of villainy, he was challenged by a good and noble king, who drove the Heterodynes and their monsters back to their dark lair. For the first time, Clemethious did not smile, for he was dead at last!
“But the eldest daughter of Clemethious was a witch and, by forgotten magics and arcane science, she seduced and then cursed the good king. He became a gigantic madwolf under her control. Lightning leapt from his jaws and he ran wild, despoiling the countryside as the witch rode upon his back, laughing in triumph. She was queen at last!
“The good king’s family was killed and his castle became a ruin inhabited only by monsters. Things were worse than ever and the
people despaired. But the king’s young son had not been killed. He had been secretly stolen away by his nurse who was a giantess. Under the cover of night, she brought him to a cave high in the mountains and there she raised him in secret. The boy grew strong and he grew fast, but the giantess would never allow him to leave the mountain. Only when he could take the copper pin from her hair, said the giantess, would he be ready to venture into the world of men.
“So the boy tried and tried and tried to overcome the giantess by force. Every time he failed. Then one day he realized that although he would never be strong enough, he could be smart enough. Through trickery he easily managed to pluck the pin from her head. The hairpin of a giantess is large enough to be a fine sword for a prince. So the prince, now well-armed, left the safety of the cave to find his fortune.
“Meanwhile, the kingdom was still suffering in fear of the witch and her terrible wolf, but the witch had grown dissatisfied with her games. The people still remembered it was the wolf who was their ruler, not the witch. The crown stayed tightly affixed to the wolf’s head, crackling with the stuff of lightning and, try as she might, the witch could not remove it. She could only rule through him. This ate away at her terrible pride, driving her mad with envy. In petty revenge against this perceived injustice, she used the madwolf’s power to make the people’s lives a misery.
“Seeing this, the prince realized that, although his father was truly lost, the people of the kingdom could still be saved. Not through strength, because the madwolf was power incarnate, but through intelligence and trickery. He disguised himself as a fortune teller. Due to his superior understanding of meteorology, human psychology, and statistical probability, he had become famous throughout the land. Soon enough he was brought before the witch. Through flattery and blatant use of false equivalency, he convinced her the crown could be removed from the madwolf, but only by the magic of his copper sword.
“The witch accepted the sword with delight. She wasted no time in attempting to use it to slay the lightning wolf, but she was woefully ignorant of the science of conductivity. Consequently, when she used the copper weapon, she was instantly struck down by her own enchanted lightning and slain. The madwolf, too, died of the blow and wept tears of joy at his release.
