Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess

by Phil Foglio; Kaja Foglio

  It was going to be a very interesting day indeed.

  When Thundering Engine Woman caught sight of the gallows with its dangling Jägers, she stopped dead. “Okay. Right here will be perfect.” She dropped the handle of the small cart she had been hauling behind her and glanced at the ground, mentally measuring an open space to one side of the posts.

  Agatha looked up and blanched. “Here? Are you kidding?”

  The other girl shook her head. “Nope. When people see something like that, they start to wonder what’s going to happen to them. They’ll flock right in, and anything you tell them will seem a lot better in comparison. You’ll make a fortune.” She dragged the cart to a good spot and began to remove the canvas wrapping.

  “That seems kind of… callous.”

  The girl nodded as she tugged the last of the cover away. She folded it and set it on the grass, well away from the cart—now revealed as a complex crate made of polished wooden and brass slats. “Probably, but I shoot things for a living. If you want sensitivity, go talk to André. Now, watch carefully. You’ll have to do this yourself, next time.”

  Agatha continued to stare at the Jägers. “But what did they do?”

  Thundering Engine Woman snorted. “Be Jägermonsters and get captured. Doesn’t take a whole lot more than that around here.” She took hold of a pair of handles and pulled. Jointed poles unfolded and silk billowed.

  Agatha bit her lip. “But—won’t the Baron be upset?”

  At this, the old watchman, who had been leaning against a nearby wall, came toward them. “The Baron don’t care about them, Miss.”

  The two women looked at him in surprise. Agatha would have sworn the man had been drowsing in the late-morning sun. “Sergeant Zulli, at your service, ladies,” he said, touching his polished helmet. His smile was indulgent, as though he were addressing children. “We’re too small and out of the way here.” He waved a hand at the tattered windsock. “It’s a rare event when we even see the Baron’s patrol ships overhead.”

  “But still, if someone comes looking for them—”

  “No need to fret about that, Miss. These fine fellows aren’t part of the Baron’s forces. What we’ve got here is a genuine pack of wild Jägers!”

  Agatha stared at the three in surprise. They grinned down at her silently.

  Zulli continued, “And to them with long memories, them what remembers the old Heterodynes, that makes these critters fair game.” He paused for a moment to look up at the captives. From the expression that settled on his face, Agatha guessed that the old guardsman’s memory was very long indeed.

  “But Bill and Barry—”

  Zulli snapped out of his reverie and smiled again. “Bless you, Miss. Of course they were the good ones.” He ran an appraising eye over her so frankly that Agatha blushed. “Young thing like you, they’re probably the only Heterodynes you know.” His eyes again looked into the distance, watching scenes that had happened long ago.

  “But before them there were the old Heterodynes—The Masters of Mechanicsburg. Murdering devils, every one of them. The Jägers rode with them, back then, in a great howling horde. They’d come riding down, swarms of them, killing for sport, pillaging and looting, laying waste to whatever they couldn’t carry off. They made a point of hitting our town for tribute every four years or so, sure as the moonrise.”

  As the old sergeant spoke, the Jägers, too, seemed to be looking into the past. Agatha watched them closely now, feeling a bit less sympathy than before.

  “That’s what the old folks remember,” Zulli concluded. He pulled an obscenely carved pipe from his pocket and struck a match on the purple Jäger’s boot, then puffed in satisfaction as he looked up at the three subdued creatures. “For them folks, living and dead, this is just an example of the wheels of justice grinding slow but fine.” The old man’s jovial mood seemed to have soured, and his face had set in hard lines. “Good day, ladies. Looking forward to your show.” He gave them an abrupt half-salute and strolled off.

  Agatha continued to study the Jägers, who stared back at her solemnly. She felt an odd sense of betrayal. The Jägers back on Castle Wulfenbach had been… she paused in her thoughts, confused.

  Well, she couldn’t really say they’d been especially kind, or terribly smart, or even particularly helpful… but she realized that she had liked them—been drawn to them. Trusted them. Trusted them to do what, exactly, she couldn’t say, but the fact was that she had felt comfortable around them. Now that she knew about her family, that made sense, but…

  “I hadn’t ever really thought about the old Heterodynes,” she admitted. “I mean, I knew they were… bad, but nobody ever really talks about it.”

  Thundering Engine Woman tacked up some loose bunting. “Yeah, well, Bill and Barry really redeemed the Heterodyne name. I think their family history is probably the reason they were always trying to do so much good.” She stepped back and examined the booth with a nod of satisfaction. “But people still scare their kids with stories about the Jägermonsters. They were—” she paused, and stared upward as if something had just caught her attention. “Actually, damn creepy is what they are.”

  Agatha followed her gaze. “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve been staring at you non-stop.” Agatha realized that this was true. They hadn’t taken their eyes off her through the whole conversation with Sergeant Zulli. They were still watching her, silently, their expressions unreadable.

  Agatha shivered. “Maybe we should set up somewhere else?”

  “Too late.” The fortune-teller’s tent was completely unfolded now. Silken walls fluttered in the breeze, striped with deep blue and purple sprinkled with golden stars. Yeti had strolled up with a stack of signs under his massive arm, and was standing with his head tipped back, examining the setup. He selected a wooden board, and hung it on a pair of hooks outside the tent:

  WHAT IS YOUR FATE?

  Madame Olga

  Mistress of

  The science of

  TELLURICOMNIVISUALIZATION

  SEES ALL!

  KNOWS ALL!

  Thundering Engine Woman rubbed her hands together and grinned. “And look! Your first customer!”

  It was true. Already standing in front of the booth was a shy-looking young woman in drab clothing, obviously trying to work up the courage to go in.

  Agatha dithered, “But I’m not ready! I haven’t looked over my notes! I’ve only got part of my costume on!”

  Thundering Engine Woman snorted. “You can put the finishing touches on later. Look, if they’ll believe I’m a real American, they’ll believe you’re a real fortuneteller.”

  “You’re not a real American?” Agatha blinked in surprise. Thundering Engine Woman had long black braids, and was dressed in flashy beaded buckskins.

  “Whoo. You are nervous. The real Thundering Engine Woman traveled with the Heterodyne Boys! How old do you think she’d be by now? I’m just an actress from Italy—but I tell them I’m from America and the crowds eat it up. They’ll swallow your act, too. Just remember they mostly want a sympathetic ear and validation of decisions they’ve already made.” She gently pushed Agatha forward. “Oh yeah, and lie a lot.”

  “Okay, okay, I can—” Agatha stumbled with the push, and found herself face to face with the young woman, who stared at her blankly. Agatha straightened up and thought quickly. She really wished she had had time to put on her fancy headdress. Oh, well. She placed her hand upon her brow theatrically and intoned: “I sense that you have… questions.”

  The customer’s eyes widened. “Wow! How do you do that?”

  Agatha was thrown for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure. “Enter my tent, child. The power of SCIENCE shall reveal all!” With a flourish, she held open the tent and gestured the girl inside. Perhaps fortunetelling would be easier than she’d thought.

  Yeti and Thundering Engine Woman watched this performance with amusement. When the tent flap was closed and murmuring voices could
be heard from inside, Yeti smiled. “Not bad,” he conceded.

  Suddenly, Agatha’s astonished squeal arose from within the tent. “YOU DID WHAT?”

  “I’d say she needs work,” Thundering Engine Woman sighed.

  A minute later, Agatha held aside the tent flap with a shaking hand. The quiet young woman stepped out, eyes demurely cast toward the ground. Agatha’s voice had an odd pitch to it as she gave her final pronouncement: “Have no fear, my child, the data indicate that all will be well.” She stood in the doorway with a grin frozen on her face until the girl was out of sight.

  Yeti stepped up. “Something wrong?”

  Agatha blushed. ”People around here are… very strange.”

  Yeti tried hard to keep his face blank, but his black eyes shone with amusement. “Well, you have to keep an open mind,” he said, fighting back a smile. “People in different places do different things. It doesn’t necessarily make them bad, it just makes them different. That’s one of the fun things about travel.”

  Agatha looked at him. Yeti should know. Zeetha had told her that he came from a land high on a distant mountain, and that he had traveled through all kinds of exotic places for years before joining up with the Circus. “It isn’t that. It’s just… how can I give people advice when I don’t understand the problem? Maybe everything that girl was telling me is perfectly normal here. For all I know, she was only worried because she’d used the wrong spoon.”

  Yeti’s curiosity was definitely piqued. “Well, you can go pretty far using common sense, logic and—”

  “Whooo! I hear you got a spicy one!” Zeetha bounded out of nowhere and draped an arm across Agatha’s shoulders. “Gimme the details!”

  Yeti shrugged. “And when necessary, ask an expert.”

  “You’re an expert in…?” Agatha blushed, “erm… weird stuff?”

  Zeetha raised her eyebrows and gave her a long, mock serious look. “Oh, yes indeed. Skifander’s patron goddess is Ashtara—she who, among other things, watches over luuurve!” She threw her arms into the air and flowed into a sinuous, undulating dance that caused Yeti to fan himself appreciatively. “Our holy days are fun! Cha cha cha!”

  Agatha relaxed enough to laugh. “Well, I think I just found you a new bishop.”

  Zeetha snorted in derision and punched Agatha’s arm. “Ha! You’re just getting started. Talk to me in a week!”

  After that, Agatha was busy for hours. The fancy headdress she had planned to wear as Madame Olga sat untouched in its hatbox, since so many people had come to have their fortunes told. Finally, Dame Ædith’s knife throwing exhibition had drawn off the crowd, and from the “oohs,” “aahs,” and occasional “Aiee!’’ it was apparent that she had their attention.

  As Agatha was about to open the hatbox at last, Balthazar rolled up, balancing atop a barrel. It was time to prepare for the main show, and he had been sent to fetch her. A small cold lump formed in her chest.

  Feeling light-headed, Agatha closed up the fortuneteller’s tent and made her way to the now-familiar canvas labyrinth that had sprouted behind the main stage.

  As soon as she arrived, someone gave a shout, and the backstage staff pounced. She was unceremoniously stripped down and buttoned into a costume—someone barked: “Close your eyes!” and began smearing makeup across her face and neck, and someone else began to tug at her hair, pinning it up in what felt like a very odd style.

  Agatha told herself that, as an actress, she would eventually get used to swarms of people rushing past while she was undressed. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that she was simply a subject in one of the bizarre sociology experiments back at Transylvania Polygnostic University that had occasionally scandalized the town. Agatha herself had never taken part in one—the waiting lists were enormous.

  Marie poked her head through the doorway. “Ten minutes,” she sang out. “Nervous?”

  Agatha grimaced. “Only because people keep asking me that.”

  Guntar stood in the corner, getting an elaborate set of construct stitching applied to the exposed parts of his body. He laughed. “Relax! If you mess up, we’ll cover for you.”

  Balthazar trotted up, a wobbling rack of pies as tall as himself balanced on his head. “Here’s the rest of the pies, daddy!”

  Agatha eyed the tower of pastry. “Okay, now I’m nervous.”

  Marie startled her by clapping her hands together with a sharp pop. “No, no, no! You’re not nervous, you’re Lucrezia Mongfish! You’re mad! You’re bad! You’re dangerous!”

  Agatha nodded. “Yes! Yes! ‘I think too much—therefore I am mad!’ Grrr!” She tried to smile like a Jäger, and succeeded well enough that Marie took a step backwards in alarm.

  “That’s…that’s very good.”

  Abner appeared, clutching a sheaf of paper, and snapping his fingers. Agatha heard a line of dialogue coming through the curtain that separated her from the stage: “I pray the mistress is in a good mood—” The line sounded familiar…

  Marie took Agatha’s arm and firmly steered her towards the stage. “That’s your cue! Go!”

  Agatha found herself directly behind center stage, her nose nearly brushing the curtain edges. She took a deep breath, grabbed one in each hand, and threw them back, roaring: “Of course I am! For it is a glorious day—”

  “FOR SCIENCE!!” the audience thundered back.

  Agatha took a deep breath and froze in horror. There, looming at least a head above the rest of the audience, was the unmistakable figure of Othar Tryggvassen.

  Panic welled up inside her. Othar! Othar had tried to kill her, just for being a Spark! She had barely managed to save herself by pushing the self-proclaimed hero over the side of the airship as they had escaped from Castle Wulfenbach.

  Yet here he was, alive, larger than life, and evidently having a wonderful time. Well why not? He had just discovered an entire troupe of Sparks. He could fill his quota for the month without even having to open his eyes.

  It was “Bumbling Minion Number Three” who saved the day. The actor had been warned that he might have to deal with a case of “first night nerves,” and he was ready. As Agatha turned to flee, he clung tightly to her hand, cleared his throat, and shouted: “Has the trap been set, Mistress?”

  The gears of Agatha’s mind finally engaged. That was her cue. The response she had practiced so many times burst from her mouth before she realized what she was doing: “Yes! And soon, all of the Heterodyne secrets will be mine!”

  And so the show went on. She’d just have to warn everyone when she got off stage, if Othar let her live that long. From the way he was cheering along with the crowd, he would at least let her finish the play.

  She managed to remain Lucrezia Mongfish all throughout the first act, but as the curtain closed, she felt her hands beginning to shake. Before she could find a place to sit or collapse, she was grabbed from behind. The fastenings down the back of her dress were being released in quick sequence. She would have to be back on stage in only a few minutes, and required a complete costume change. “That was a great first act,” Marie said.

  Agatha allowed herself to relax slightly. Othar still hadn’t attacked…

  Trish nodded as she threw a new costume across Agatha’s shoulders and began to tighten a series of cleverly strung laces. “Very edgy! It was like you expected someone to shoot you or something.”

  The idea made Agatha go tense again. She took a deep breath. “I think I saw Othar Tryggvassen out there! The big blond guy with the weird visor glasses?”

  Trish grinned. “Oh, you saw him? Yeah, he loves our shows!”

  Agatha blinked. “He’s—you’ve all met him before?”

  The Countess whipped a huge bunch of false curls out of a hatbox and began to fasten it to the back of Agatha’s head. It felt like she was using nails. “He gets around a lot. We’ve seen him five—”

  “Six,” Trish corrected her.

  The Countess nodded. “Correct. Six times in the past year. He buys a
lot of popcorn.”

  “And he hasn’t shot anybody?”

  Trish gave her an odd look. “Of course not. It’s good popcorn. He gets free refills.”

  Then, Agatha remembered that the Sparks of Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure took pains to hide their true talents. Othar most likely saw nothing here but ordinary actors and sideshow wonders. The Spark could be hidden.

  Finally, Marie stepped back and gestured meaningfully—it was nearly time for her next entrance.

  Relief had lifted Agatha’s spirits, but the nervous energy that terror had lent her remained. When Lucrezia Mongfish strode into her laboratory in a towering rage and demanded of her three cringing minions: “Who has deactivated my beautiful frogs?” the audience pointed as one to Bill Heterodyne, who lay stripped to the waist and shackled to a huge wooden laboratory table. “He did!” they screamed.

  All in all, it was a tremendous success.

  The rest of the show passed in a kaleidoscopic whirl, and then…suddenly… Lars was kissing her.

  They had carefully pecked at each other during rehearsals, but for the real show, Abner had ordered them to hold the kiss as long as the audience cheered them on.

  The audience cheered them on for approximately six and a half years. When it was over, Agatha tottered dizzily backward, her face burning. She stuttered through her last lines and fled the stage with as much grace as she could manage.

  The Countess caught Agatha as she entered the wings. She adjusted her hairpiece and tucked her disheveled costume back into place just as the final curtain fell. Then she spun Agatha about and gave her costume one last expert tweak, exposing shoulders and an alarming amount of decolletage in one quick tug before propelling her back onto the stage. She landed hard against Lars, who caught her expertly in the crook of his arm.

  At her entrance, the applause doubled in volume. Cheers and whistles filled the air.

  Agatha had never received such overwhelming approval as she was getting now—nearly everything she had done at the University had either been ignored or had gotten her into trouble. She drank in the adulation, astonished at how satisfying—how right it felt. She ventured a peek at the audience to see how Othar was reacting, and was surprised to see that he was gone.