Agatha H and the Siege of Mechanicsburg

by Phil Foglio

  Agatha stared. “How in the world did you get that thing up here?”

  “Hastily improved rocket boosters.” He held up a finger. “Quick safety tip: don’t click your heels unless you mean it.” He leaned out of the window. “Would my Lady like to take over? I’ve even recharged Gil’s lightning stick. You should be able to blow that ram into gyros.”

  “You go ahead. You look like you’re having fun.”

  Tarvek looked pleased. “Really? But it is your town . . . ”

  “I’ll get the next one.”

  Tarvek began pulling levers, and the armor swung about. “You know, if we live, I can design you something better than this.”

  “Better than a two-ton mobile armored death knight? What could make it better?”

  Tarvek patted the side. “Better curves? In green?”

  “Stop the ram, then we’ll talk.”

  Tarvek swung the great halberd up and, with a crackle, it discharged a blue-white bolt of electricity directly into the again-charging ram. When it hit, the ram leapt forward, again smashed into the wall, then again trotted back for another go. “The devil,” Tarvek snapped. “That was a direct hit! They’ve shielded it!”

  Agatha nodded. “I was afraid of this. Everyone saw Gil use his lightning stick, so it makes sense that they’ve shielded against it.”

  Krosp interrupted, “They’re pulling back the ram.”

  Agatha grimaced. “Oh, that’s not good.”

  Tarvek nodded. “They were testing us. Now they know what we have. Or at least, what we’re willing to use.”

  Zog considered this. “So hyu tink he’s gunna send in an army of beeg sheeps?”

  Tarvek looked down and sighed. “No.”

  “MECHANICSBURG! HEED MY WORDS!”

  Tarvek sighed. “I think it’ll be something even more ridiculous.”

  Striding towards the gates was a dragon. Agatha blinked. This wasn’t a lumpy, squat dragon like the one she’d seen roaring through the town. This was a sleek red dragon encased in shining golden armor. It reached the center of the causeway and sent a stream of flame skywards. It carried a glittering sword and buckler, which it now crashed together with a deafening sound reminiscent of thunder. “If you would have me spare your miserable town,” the dragon bellowed out in a voice that rolled out to the horizon and back, “you will send forth the Heterodyne girl— NOW!” It stamped a huge foot in emphasis, cracking one of the great paving stones. “Or you may attempt to hide her, if you wish, and I will raze your filthy hovels to the ground! Make your choice quickly, or I shall make it for you. For my part, I contemplate the destruction of this vile den of perfidy with great joy!”

  Zog shook his head. “A dragon. Dot’s not goot. Dose guys iz a real pain in de backside. Hy thought ve took care uf all dem a couple of hunnert years ago.”135

  “It’s obviously not very bright,” Tarvek said. “It’s not like Agatha is actually going to just walk out there.”

  He turned to her and the confidence in his eyes faded at the sight of her contemplating the dragon below.

  “Well, I hope it won’t come to that,” Agatha said, “but we can’t count on the Castle, and we’re running out of other options. If it’s a choice between me and the entire town . . . ”

  A scream that sounded like tearing metal echoed from the walls behind them. Everyone turned to see Franz atop the nearest tower. Stubby wings outspread, scales a-bristle, quivering with rage. “What is this,” he screamed. “WHAT IS THIS? You are on my turf, pretty boy!”136 With a clatter, Franz leapt from the wall and hissed menacingly.

  The red dragon spread its wings and turned to its companion, a small man astride a surprisingly phlegmatic burro. “What is this? Observe, my dear Gazpacho. ’Tis a poor, baseborn lizard with dreams of dragonhood!”

  The man looked at Franz and scratched his chin. “In truth, m’Lord, he is bigger than any lizard I have ever seen.”

  “Pah! If superficial resemblances were the sole measure, then you sit astride his dam!”

  “Haw! Good one, m’Lord.”

  “Oh . . . oh yeah?” It was painfully obvious Franz was not used to insults or, indeed, any badinage at all. “Well, we got more than enough real dragon here for one town, so you and your long-eared auntie there can just push off!” He took a deep breath and pointed at the burro. “And by ‘auntie,’ I mean the jackass.” Atop the parapet, the watchers tried not to meet each other’s eyes.

  “So get outta here. NOW!” This was accompanied by a surprisingly intense gout of yellow flame that erupted from Franz’ jaws, catching the red dragon squarely in the face. However, the creature failed to react and, when the flame died down, even its armor was undamaged. Franz blinked in surprise.

  “Are you finished, peasant?” The red dragon sniffed disdainfully. “Clearly, you are naught but a sideshow wonder sprung from the fevered blasphemies of some half-witted student of outdated alchemy.”

  Franz shrugged. “Aren’t we all?”

  The red dragon frowned. “Fire is not how true dragons duel!”

  Franz crossed his arms. “Oh great. Let me guess. This is where you spout a bunch of fancy riddles or something.”

  “No—” The red dragon sprang forward, and a solid punch caught Franz squarely between the eyes. “This is where I beat you to death.” Franz slammed backwards into the town gate and collapsed to the ground. He scrabbled feebly as he tried to get back up to his feet.

  “Verily, m’Lord,” the obsequious Gazpacho ventured, “it hath taken but one hit to make your point.”

  This did not seem to please the red dragon, who stomped a foot in rage. “No,” he roared. “Are you not Franz Scorchmaw, Bone Gnawer of the Heterodynes? First and foremost of dragons?”137

  This seemed to reach Franz and he lumbered to his feet, a new determination in his eyes. “You’d better believe it!”

  Again the red dragon stomped its foot. “Yet you swallow petty insults and move like a drunken bovine! Fight me! FIGHT ME! I came for a battle between dragons, not this mummer’s play!”

  Franz launched himself forward. “You want a fight? Then—” Again a vicious blow caught him solidly on the jaw, flipping him up and over backwards into a heap.

  The red dragon slumped in disappointment. “So easy,” he sighed. “You are naught but a samded spit-frog after all, aye?”

  Furious now, Franz rolled to his feet and drove his claws into the pavement below. With a grunt, he ripped free a massive stone block. “You fancy-pantsed, shiny-arsed twerp! Yer all sparkle and talk!” He raised the block above his head. “Lots and lots of talk!”

  In a flowing move, the red dragon spun and his long tail snapped out like a whip, catching Franz across the eyes, sending him backwards. The stone block dropped squarely on his head. “So slow,” the red dragon hissed. “It’s as if you were a spineless somnambulist who has but slept for years upon long years!”

  Franz waved a hand feebly. “But . . . but that’s what I’m supposed to do! Waiting for the Heterodyne to awaken me . . . ”

  The red dragon drew his sword. “Then you will sleep again and await her but a very short while longer—in the undiscovered country.”

  The watchers atop the wall were startled by Agatha’s cry of “Stand back!” She pushed past them, carefully leveling Gil’s lightning cane. Tarvek frowned. But, the red dragon has to be as well-shielded as anything else the Baron would send, he thought, just as a bolt of blue electricity flashed from the sky and struck—Franz.

  The red dragon leapt back in amazement. “What perfidy is this? It seems even your Heterodyne does not like you!”

  Within the crackling nimbus of electricity, Franz reared his head high and glared. The red dragon and his squire breaths caught in surprise. Franz’ eyes were glowing, as were the array of dials that lined his neck. The needle on the tiny gauge inset into his snout now pointed all the way to the right. A wide, toothy grin spread across his face. “Oh no. That was exactly what she needed to do. I feel great!” Fran
z moved towards his opponent with a satisfied rumble, and a fist like a small boulder shot into the red dragon’s face, sending the creature to his knees. Franz gazed down at him, still grinning. “Let me show you.”

  Up on the wall, Agatha was talking to the Mechanicsburg trooper. “Find Herr von Mekkhan. Tell him I need all of Gilgamesh Wulfenbach’s power accumulators activated. As many of them as they can get up and running.”

  “Yes, my Lady!” And the trooper took off. Agatha turned to Tarvek and the others. “All of the Heterodyne creations I’ve seen—the Torchmen, the mobile fun units, Franz, even Adam and Lilith—they all need to be recharged. It’s a design flaw I’ve seen in all my family’s works. I’m betting it’s the same for the Castle. The ‘spark’ it needs—it doesn’t mean a scientist. It just needs a good, old-fashioned bolt of lightning!”

  Tarvek looked out over the battlefield and grimaced. “I like your hypothesis. Hope you get the chance to prove it.”

  On the ground below, Franz stood over the now-cowering dragon and began to remove its helmet. Suddenly, an amplified voice boomed forth. “HOLD!” The two dragons froze, staring up into the sky where eight gigantic figures hovered. They looked like stylized chess pieces, but each of them was easily ten meters tall. They were faced with brilliant white enamel chased with gold and their leader wore a small golden crown. “Cease this obstreperous brawling,” he demanded as he slowly settled to the ground beside them. “Your antics shame the Lady Heterodyne!”

  Franz glanced at the red dragon. “Some of your friends?”

  “Don’t be insulting,” the red dragon replied. “They’re knights.”

  The “king” continued. “We are here to rescue the Lady Heterodyne and her lands in the name of the Storm King!”

  Tarvek went white. “That voice . . . ”

  Agatha poked him in the side. “Those are your knights?”

  “No!” He considered this. “Well . . . technically, sort of. They are Knights of Jove, but I thought you said Gil took them all out with that stick of his.”

  Agatha shook her head. “Those attackers claimed to be Knights of Jove, but that was an army of big metal war stompers. There was nothing like these guys.”

  General Zog scratched his chin beard. “Vell, dese guyz gots goot timink, ennyvay.”

  Tarvek gasped. Agatha stepped in. “What is it?”

  He swept his hand out towards the besiegers. “The Baron. That perfect mess of a battle array. Too perfect. He’s just been waiting until the true players revealed themselves!”

  Indeed, across the massed armies, sirens began to wail, and before the astonished eyes of the people of Mechanicsburg, the scene before them . . . changed.

  Smoke cleared. Heaps of ramshackle equipment collapsed. Disorganized, wandering troops dropped or furled unsuspected trompe-l’œil banners. Where a chaotic disaster of a rag-tag army had been, now stood row upon row of glittering machines and men, monsters and vehicles standing in perfect pre-battle formations. The skies magically cleared, revealing flotillas of airships, bombers, troop carriers, and obvious weapons platforms that completely ringed the town.

  Agatha stared. “How did they do that?”138

  Tarvek waved a hand. “Unimportant. What is important is that they were waiting for these fools to show themselves—and now they have!”

  Zog interrupted. “Dese guys? Seriously? Der Baron’s spymasters iz findink plots against der empire all der time! Vy vould he hold off capturink our Heterodyne for a bonch of goofs like dem? No, Iz too much! Der iz more to dis! Dere iz somting else goink on!”

  Aboard the hovering Castle Wulfenbach, the Baron examined the tactical situation with satisfaction, then turned to his son. “There now, that is the true situation.”

  Gilgamesh was currently afloat in a cylinder of heavy oil. It took all of his strength to keep his head free. The Baron continued. “Well? Shall I destroy her?”

  “I don’t think you can. The Castle. We repaired it.”

  Klaus shook his head. “Oh, I assure you, I can. You may have repaired it, but there is no sign it is active. I saw it when it was fully functional, you know, and I see nothing to indicate it is capable of effective action. All those years of neglect, followed by the recent burst of activity have obviously left it drained of motive power, to the point where, according to my most recent reports, even its most minor functions have ceased. It can no longer protect itself, let alone the girl—or the town.” He pointed at the nearest monitor. “You are not a fool. Look at the field. Surely you can see that this fight is over. The only question is whether the girl will live or die. Choose!”

  Gil stared at the displays before him, and no matter what simulations he ran in his head, the answer was always the same. His father began to tap his foot, and Gil slammed his fist against the wall of the tube, knowing he had lost. “All right! All right! Fine! Don’t kill her! I’ll do . . . I’ll do anything you want.”

  Unseen by Gil, Klaus closed his eyes in pain. A part of him had hoped Gil would be able to see a way out. Something he had missed. But no. He straightened his shoulders and turned back to the broken young man before him. “Very good,” he said. “There is . . . hope for you yet.” Knowing there was no hope at all.

  Beside Klaus, Lucrezia/Anevka clapped her hands in delight. “We shall have to come up with something special for you,” she said mischievously. “Something that will make you as useful as your dear father.” An idea struck her. “Oh! I have just the thing!” She patted Klaus on the arm and seemed to take great delight in how he tried to twitch it aside. “You’re going to hate it,” she said with a smile.

  CHAPTER 11

  Why has the Heterodyne family survived? A legitimate question, when you consider they are universally reviled. The question becomes even more perplexing when you realize they are arguably the oldest dynasty in Europa, surviving when dozens of lesser houses have risen, conquered, and then slumped back into irrelevance. The answer seems to be that they were open minded.

  Throughout the centuries, their enemies have consistently proclaimed they are superior to the Heterodynes because they adhere to a predictable set of high-minded beliefs, laws, and/or codes of conduct, while the Heterodynes freely admitted they do no such thing and, incidentally, seemed to go out of their way to embrace chaos, evil, and malice.

  While this would certainly seem to give the Heterodyne’s antagonists the spiritual high ground, the sad reality is that the people who opposed the Heterodynes frequently did so for less than benevolent reasons. Those who feel the power they possess is granted to them by God, and thus their rightful due, rarely consider the optics of the thousand-and-one thoughtless cruelties they blithely perform on a daily basis have on the (usually) silent constituents who actually make up the foundations of their temporal power.

  But while the Heterodynes could be legitimately charged with every high crime, atrocity, and blasphemy under the sun, the one charge you cannot lay at their feet is that of hypocrisy. They freely admitted they were terrible people and made no pretense they were anything else.

  One of the reasons organized religion has failed to gain the traction in Europa many scholars think it should have, is that the Heterodynes have roared their defiance of all that is good and proper from their mountain fortress for centuries, and have, very conspicuously, NOT been smote by a vengeful deity, or by any of their self-proclaimed earthly representatives. In fact, they seem to be doing annoyingly well.

  A large part of this success seems to be that they are, when all and said and done, scientists. And dreadfully good ones, at that. When something doesn’t work, they admit it and change it. When they come up with a new, better way of doing something? They implement it. They are, in their own way, devotees of Truth and have no loyalty to any established theory, belief, or institution.

  This gave them an enormous advantage when dealing with enemies who may very well be aware there was a “better way of doing something,” but could not change due to institutional inertia or conflictin
g beliefs.”

  —From the introduction to Nikotiva von Schmetterling’s The Warped Tree: The Genealogy of the Heterodynes (Transylvania Polygnostic University Press)

  Attention!” A flotilla of balloonists sailed through the driving rain over Mechanicsburg, loudspeakers crackling. “All citizens are to evacuate by way of the South Gates immediately. Mechanicsburg is about to be destroyed! Attention—”

  Atop an observation tower, a Jäger shouted into a small handheld communicator. “Der empire iz valkink shells down der northern road!” On the road itself, a series of explosions were, in fact, leisurely making their way towards the town. It was obvious to the Jäger’s experienced eye that this was a display of power and control that was supposed to be seen. “Hy dun tink dey iz gonna blow der north vall yet, but vhen dey do, nottink iz goink to schtop dem!”

  Agatha, Tarvek, and General Zog were on that wall, to the general’s increasing dismay. He, too, calculated that if the Baron’s forces had wanted to bring down the walls, they could have done so already. “So they’re just going to level the town, going from north to south,” Agatha yelled against the ongoing thunder.

  “Iz a goot plan,” Zog replied. “Vhich iz vhy ve should not be here!”

  “So why not attack us from all four sides? They have enough artillery.”

  Zog beamed and almost patted her head. Hyu iz a Heterodyne all right, he thought. “Hy imagine dot dey vants to let der townspipple flee. Iz goot form. Pluz hy tink dey schtill hope to ketch hyu, Mistress.”

  Agatha considered the Knights of Jove clanks. They had obviously realized that trapped between the city wall and the advancing army was a strategically poor choice. Even Agatha had realized that the great white behemoths standing before Mechanicsburg’s dark walls made superb targets. Two of the great clanks had already been destroyed by long-range artillery, and this had spurred the remaining clanks to quickly fly in over the walls. Agatha expressed concern about letting them in, but it was agreed that even if they were inferior fighters, they would cause the empire to waste a few shots, which Agatha thought a bit cold. “What is so important about these guys that the Baron was waiting for them?”