Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

by Kaja Foglio

  He looked down at the shrieking assassin and with a booted heel, gave a savage stomp, crushing his throat.

  Gil swallowed. Thanks to the Baron’s efforts, much of the Jägermonsters’ casual cruelty and disregard for human life had been knocked out of them (or at least been better hidden). This fellow seemed untouched by the Baron’s behavioral modification efforts. A sudden realization hit him.

  “A Jäger? Here in Mechanicsburg?”16

  The creature looked down at him and sneered. “Captain Vole. Mechanicsburg Security Division. I iz not a Jäger, sir.”

  Gil was used to having to humor a great many self-delusional people amongst the Empire’s command staff, but there were some things that could not remain unchallenged. “How do you figure that?”

  The creature spat. “Der Jägers iz veak. Dey cannot let go of der oldt dead masters. I heff renounced der Jägertroth.”17

  Gil blinked. “You can do that?”

  Sun stepped in. “It wasn’t his idea.” The tall Jäger looked away as Sun continued, “They threw him out. It was an unprecedented move.”

  Gil nodded slowly. “And your loyalty to the House of Heterodyne?”

  Vole snapped his head back. “Pah. Non-existent, sir.”

  “Fascinating. Your news?”

  “Yes, sir. Dere iz now, in der town, a second gurl claiming to be a Heterodyne.”

  Gil felt a tightening in his chest. “A second girl…is she also attempting to enter the castle?”

  “No, sir.” Vole shrugged. “She iz in a coffee shop.”

  “A coffee—what is she doing in a coffee shop?”

  “Hy’m told she iz makink coffee, sir.”

  A touch of annoyance crept into Gil’s voice. “Making coffee.”

  Vole grinned. “Dere haff been three explosions so far, sir.”

  The surety struck Gil like a bolt of his own lightning. “Agatha!” He turned to Dr. Sun. “It’s her! It’s got to be her!”

  The old man frowned. “Wait. This is the genuine Heterodyne girl you said was ‘already taken care of’? But now you look pleased that she’s here.”

  Gil realized that he was, in fact, grinning like an idiot, and his pulse was racing. He took a deep breath. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be pleased.”

  Sun looked wary. “Oh?”

  Gil continued, “Father is convinced she’s dangerous.”

  Sun glanced over at Klaus’s array of medical devices and the bandaged man they served. “Well, all the evidence does suggest—”

  “That is why I sent her to England.”

  Dr. Sun had worked very hard over the years, perfecting a reputation for heroic unflappability. He was usually very good at it. Thus, it was a shame for Gil that he had his back to him at that moment.

  “You did what?18 You sent a genuine Heterodyne heir to England?” It seemed something of a counter intuitive move.

  Gil shrugged. “You remember my man, Ardsley Wooster? He was a British agent. I had to use him to get Agatha out of Sturmhalten. Allowing him to take her to England seemed like the best motivation.”

  Sun stared at him. Gil began to feel somewhat anxious under that unflinching stare. He tried to explain: “I wasn’t going to let them keep her, of course. I told him that if they didn’t keep her safe for me, I’d destroy them, okay?”

  Dr. Sun was one of those Sparks who liked to believe that he trod rather firmly upon the path of sanity. He did this by maintaining a rock-steady focus upon the administration of the Great Hospital and only unleashed his own considerable talents when he was devising new medicines or treatments. He tried to avoid the politics of the Empire, but even he was familiar with the tensions between the two great powers. He knew well enough how much even a casual threat by the young Wulfenbach could affect the entire continent. He took a deep breath.

  Gilgamesh made a soothing motion. “But if she’s here, why then, it’s a moot point.” He smiled at his old teacher disingenuously.

  Sun raised an eyebrow—then began elaborately folding back his sleeves, a sight which caused Gil to go pale. “It’s been a while since I gave you a thrashing,” the old man remarked conversationally, “but under the circumstances, I’m sure your father would approve.”

  Gil desperately waved at the bodies of the assassins on the floor. “Is this the right time, Sifu?”

  Sun smiled. “Do give me some credit, young Wulfenbach. Rest assured that the pain will stop the instant I am finished making sure you understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  Sun pursed his lips. “Ooh, this might take some time.”

  Gil took a step back, wide-eyed. Fortunately for him, he was spared this particular lesson. It was interrupted before it could begin by a giant mechanical ant which came smashing through the wall. It waved its antennae and declared mechanically: “Death to the despoiler of East Kruminey!”

  Sun looked startled. “East what?”

  Gil flicked a finger and the tip of his cane began to glow with a bright blue light. “It’s not really important.”

  “I suppose not,” Sun conceded.

  The tall Jäger, who had been following the conversation with great interest, stepped forward. “Allow me—”

  Gil waved him back and shot a bolt of electricity at the ant’s head. Surprisingly, it absorbed the charge and discharged it back at him from its antennae.

  “Interesting,” Gil grunted. He spoke to Vole. “No, I’ll handle this. I want you to bring the Heterodyne girl here. The one in the town.”

  Sun looked alarmed. “No! Wait!”

  Anything else he was about to say was cut off as another bolt of lightning shot from the mechanical ant and narrowly missed him but came perilously close to the insensate Baron.

  “Go!” Gil yelled as he leapt onto the device’s thorax.

  Vole saluted and slipped out the door before Sun could interfere. If this girl truly was a Heterodyne, the ex-Jäger most definitely wanted to meet her.

  Back in the Sausage Factory, the now finished coffee engine gave a final “blurk” and released a great gout of savory steam. Several electrical discharge points gave a last crackle as the whine of a dynamo dopplered down the scale. An orange light began to flash. Everyone in the café realized that they were holding their breath and they all released it at the same time.

  Agatha picked up an ornate china cup, held it under a silver spout, and threw a switch. A stream of black liquid sensuously poured out. The aroma that spread had everyone breathing deeply. It was the aroma of fine coffee, redolent with undertones of cinnamon, chocolate, and possibly, a soupçon of diesel oil. But there was more to it than just the aroma itself. Every person who smelled it found themselves remembering a frosty morning or an inn alongside a rain-soaked road or a quiet café in that indeterminate time between night and dawn when the city was just beginning to awaken and one could imagine that you were one of the few people left on Earth. Their mouths filled with the memory of the coffee that they had sipped then and how it was the perfect thing in the perfect place at that perfect time and how it restored one’s faith in one’s own humanity and reaffirmed your place in the world and gave you the strength to go on and do something amazing. Everyone who smelled the aroma that spread from the coffee in Agatha’s hand knew—they knew—that this coffee would be even better.

  “It’s ready,” Agatha said brightly.

  Carson ran a connoisseur’s eye over the device that loomed over the tables. “Not bad,” he conceded.

  Vanamonde raised his head from beneath the table where he’d hidden when Agatha had turned the machine on. He looked like he’d been pole-axed. “But how did she…” He fished a watch from an inner pocket and checked the time. He then held it up to his ear to be sure it was still running. “But it’s impossible!”

  Krosp shrugged nonchalantly, though Van noted that the cat had been sequestered under the table right beside him. “Never seen a real Spark in action before, eh, kid?”

  Agatha sniffed the cup and then faced the c
rowd and gave them a small salute. “Well, here’s to Science!”

  Instantly Vanamonde was before her, his hand covering the top of the cup. Agatha’s lips stopped millimeters away.

  “Wait,” he said, as he deftly slid the cup from her hand. “As your seneschal, I should try this first, my lady.”

  He glanced over to his grandfather and muttered quietly, “If regular coffee set her off, who knows what this stuff would do?” He was astonished to see a tear appear in his grandfather’s eye.

  “Whatever happens to you, m’boy, try…” the old man said in a shaky voice, “try to remember that I’m so proud of you right now…”

  Van blinked and examined the no-longer-quite-so-tempting cup in his hand. For form’s sake, he gave it a delicate sniff. “Excellent aroma.” He looked up and saw that everyone was watching him closely. With a feeling of trepidation, he took a delicate sip—

  Light. Pure golden light burst upon his consciousness. The light one gets from a glorious clear sunrise at ten thousand meters in the sky with the fresh wind in your face. There was music—enlightening music—that filled his frame and made him want to dance and synchronize himself to its rhythms like a glorious symphony set to the tick of a metronome in tune with all of existence that gathered you in and showed you your place in the universe and how astonishing that it existed at all and how much more wondrous it was that you were there to appreciate its existence and realize that you were a part of it and that there was work to be done to make everything better and that you had an important part to play and that this was how it should be and you knew that nothing would ever be the same again because you now knew that the world and everything in it, all its glories and foibles, its madmen and saints, its agonies and its ecstasies, were necessary and that what we called “life” was how one surfed the edge of creation and that it was a glorious game and you were as good a player as anyone else and thus this moment and everything in it was—

  “Perfect,” Van whispered, tears rolling down his face. A red-gold vision resolved itself in front of him. The Heterodyne. Of course it was she. Everything he was and that his family had been for generations recognized her as the thing that had been missing from his life and in that moment of realization he became forever and irrevocably hers.

  The vision looked worried and languidly waved a hand before his face. “Does it taste okay?” She bit her lip. “Are you okay?”

  Vanamonde’s mind tried to pull itself together. There was so much that needed doing, of course. Lists and schedules bloomed in the organized corridors of his mind. Everything would have to be reorganized. He began assembling a list of the various lists he would have to prioritize… But wait, the Heterodyne was still looking at him. How embarrassing. She’d been waiting for over an hour for him to answer.

  “It’s perfect,” he assured her.

  She nodded encouragingly.

  Oh, how could he explain? He had to explain. He had to do whatever he could to make her life easier and more interesting. He took another hour or so to correctly formulate his response.

  “The taste is a perfect blend of all the tastes and essences that make coffee what it is. A perfect blend—And yet I can discern each and every one, perfectly.”

  He realized that he was still clutching the cup and saucer. And the coffee in it was still hot! After so many hours! Astonishing!

  “Even the way the liquid adheres to the inside of the cup—indicative of the way it flows along the taste buds—is aesthetically perfect. It reveals the mathematical perfection of the cup itself!”

  He realized that he was declaiming now. His voice ringing out with the force of the pure truth he spoke. “The delicate smoothness of the china, with its own inherent temperature, which mitigates the otherwise extreme heat of the coffee itself—It is a thing of tactile and functioning beauty! Perfect!”

  Now he was on top of a table and everyone was staring up at him. Yes! They must listen! This was cosmic truth itself! “And this! This perfect saucer!”

  Carson sidled up to Agatha. “Lady?” He looked worried.

  Agatha glanced back at Van as he began licking the saucer, his eyes rolling back into his head at the sensation upon his tongue. She gave a weak smile. “I can fix that,” she assured him. She looked down at the still-full cup that she had eased from Van’s hand. “Probably.”

  There was a crash, and one of the light fixtures exploded. The crowd shrieked and dropped to the floor.

  Vanamonde allowed himself to drift downwards, like a perfect snowflake.

  In the doorway, smoking pistol in hand, stood Captain Vole, along with a squad of what even Agatha could identify as bullyboys. “Hy seek de vun who claims to be der Heterodyne,” he roared.

  Agatha smiled at the sight. A Jäger! She began to step forward only to feel Carson holding her back with an iron grip. “Don’t move,” he whispered urgently. “Keep quiet!”

  The tall monster soldier strode into the room. His gaze swept the huddled townsfolk on the floor, then took in the assorted mounds of tools and equipment and lingered on the tall, hissing coffee machine in the center of the room. He nodded in satisfaction.

  “Hy know dot she iz here,” he stated conversationally. “Step forvard now, gurl—” Smoothly he spun the gun in his hand and placed the barrel against a waitresses’ forehead. She froze. “Or,” Vole continued, “Hy vill begin shootink dese fools.” He waved to include the rest of the crowd. “Hy giff hyu to three.” He paused, and cocked the gun, “…Two…”

  “Stop!” Agatha stepped free of Carson’s hand. “I am the Heterodyne!” She marched up to the startled Jäger and poked him in the chest. “How dare you burst in like this and threaten these people! Stop this at once!”

  The effect of this dressing-down upon the tall Jäger was dramatic. His face paled and his eyes widened. He took a step back and studied the girl before him while he rubbed his jaw. “Hyu… Dot voice,” he breathed. “Dot schmell… Hy ken feel it…” he patted his chest in wonder. “Here. Ken hit be true? Hyu really iz—?”

  Agatha smiled up at him. “Yes,” she assured him, “I am.”

  The Jäger’s eyes went cold and his gun came up. “Vell den. Dot changes efferyting!”

  Without really understanding why, Agatha instinctively hurled the cup of coffee into the Jäger’s face and dodged as the gun went off centimeters from her ear.

  The monster soldier shrieked in rage as he shook the coffee out of his eyes. “Dem hyu!” Again the gun came up. “Now hy vill not just keel hyu—” he screamed, “Now hy vill keel efferyvun! Hy—” Vole paused, and a thick pink tongue ran across his upper lip. He looked surprised. “Dot iz verra gud coffee.”

  The large drop-steel monkey wrench Agatha swung at him caught him squarely across the back of his head. Vole blinked. “Vit a nize kick!”

  A second blow drove him to the floor, unconscious. “Glad you like it,” Agatha said, panting. She looked up at the frozen seneschal. “Herr von Mekkhan,” she glanced at the rest of the crowd. “I’m putting these people in danger just by being here. It would be best if I got into the castle. Quickly.”

  The unmistakable sound of weapons being cocked caused every eye to swing back towards the front door. There stood Vole’s companions. It was obvious that they had been chosen for their willingness to cause damage, as opposed to the Wulfenbach Empire’s usual high standards, but while slow, they had finally registered their leader’s trouble.

  “I think you’ll come with us, Miss, you are under arrest.” He indicated the prone Jäger with the tip of his rifle. “Captain Vole seemed to have a grudge against you, but I don’t. Not yet. Our orders are just to bring you in. Whether it’s alive or dead is at our discretion. So let’s all be discreet, hey?”

  This unexpected display of civility and tact was spoiled by a paving stone hitting him between the eyes. Within an instant, bricks, bottles, and other debris showered down upon the remaining two soldiers, followed by a swarm of townspeople.

  “Stop!” The mob
froze and stared at Agatha. “They didn’t shoot. Don’t kill them.” For a long couple of seconds nothing happened and then a tall man in a leather apron swatted a younger man on the back of his head. “Back to the shop! Get thirty meters of Number Three rope!” He glanced at Vole. “And four of Number Six chain.” The young man left at a run and the crowd laid the unconscious men out. A team began dragging the still-comatose Jäger out onto the street. Others began sweeping through the café, collecting up tools and materials.

  Agatha turned to Carson. “This will only get worse. Get me to the castle. Now.”

  The old man nodded. “It looks like I’d better.” He turned to one of the café’s waitresses, who was gently leading out a serene Vanamonde. “I’ll have to ask you and the rest of the girls to keep an eye on my grandson.”

  The girl smiled. “Of course, sir. We’ll get him home.”

  Van clapped his hands together and squealed. “Of course they will! They’re perfect!”

  The old man sighed. “With any luck this will wear off soon,” he muttered.

  The girl nodded. “I certainly hope so. He’s creeping me out.”

  Agatha and Carson strode off. Krosp trotted alongside, while Zeetha and Wooster brought up the rear, scanning the area for trouble.

  What they saw was not trouble, but evidence that trouble was on its way. Everywhere, spreading out from the now closed café behind them, shops were suddenly pulling their wares in from the street and pulling down their shutters, to the growing consternation of the tourists.

  Seeing a growing crowd ahead, the old man steered them to a narrow flight of stone steps and they found themselves striding atop an ancient wall. This was obviously once part of some fortifications, but as Mechanicsburg had grown, it had been incorporated into the inner structures of the town. There were a lot fewer people here, and von Mekkhan took a deep sigh.

  “Normally, I would just take you straight to the front gate,” he said thoughtfully.

  Agatha peered over the wall and saw a squad of Wulfenbach troops jogging along one of the streets below. “But that’s not a good idea now.”