by Kaja Foglio
DuPree went still. Her pupils expanded. Gil nodded at her unasked question. “I mean anyone. Men, women, children, service animals—anyone.”
She began breathing faster and her hands darted about her person, checking the numerous weapons she had hidden about her person. “You can use any weapon you like,” Gil continued coldly. “Just keep my father from harm.”
DuPree stared at him and then suddenly wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug. Gil endured this for several seconds and then gently pried himself free. “But,” he dropped his voice and whispered to her, “put your trash in the corner and don’t let my father see it. I don’t want him upset.”
With that he strode out.
DuPree looked after him quizzically and then shrugged. She stepped up to Klaus, who seemed to be sleeping. Turning about, she glanced into the corner of the room that was hidden from Klaus’s view. She gasped. There was a small pile of corpses spilling out of the closet.
She stared after Gil with renewed respect. Setting him on fire just might be a challenge after all.
_______________
10 His Grace, Josef Carmelita Strinbeck, was from a minor kingdom in Lithuania that had been overrun by unsettlingly large wind-up toys. You might think these circumstances would cause him to be mocked by his fellow royals, but variants of this absurd story were all-too-common amongst displaced nobility. Too many of the wrong sort of person found these events hilarious to begin with. Among the Fifty Families, to be anything other than properly sympathetic and solicitous when hearing the story of a fellow royal’s overthrow by Sparks, no matter how ludicrous it sounded, was considered extremely gauche. As for the Duke himself, he was—by all accounts—snide, supercilious, and a born martinet. It had often been said that it was only his family connections that had stood in the way of his becoming an incredibly feared headwaiter.
11 Make no mistake, Dr. Sun was a Spark, specializing in the more outré branches of medicine. This was by no means the first inconvenient corpse he’d had to step around while he worked. Usually on another corpse.
12 Tiny Monster Island is one of the more boring Mechanicsburg landmarks. Unless, of course, one is foolish—or unfortunate—enough to leave the path. Then it becomes very exciting indeed.
13 Ironically, we now know from Carson von Mekkhan’s journals, that if Agatha had taken the time to explain every improbable, bizarre event that had led her to Mechanicsburg, he might very well have believed her on the spot. The family history of the Heterodynes has never made for dull reading.
14 At this time, many trades still learned their skills starting at a very basic level. Most mechanics, carpenters, artificers, and other skilled tradesmen were expected to actually build, craft, and forge their own tools. A tradesman’s tools were precious things indeed. They were never lent out, their loss was a crippling blow, and their owners were usually buried with them. Now Klaus liked to move with the times, and the Empire was responsible for great strides in converting the Empire’s industrial base from hand made items to mass production, but he felt that there was a great lesson to be learned by the old traditions and thus he insisted that potential factory owners had to physically help construct their factories.
15 In a world filled with mad science, heterodyning occupies a special place. It is a peculiar vocal tick that appears to be unique to the Heterodyne family. According to its practitioners, it cancels out ambient noise, making it easier to concentrate on the task at hand. If this is true, it means that the person heterodyning is able to instantaneously analyze all incoming noise and organically generate its harmonic opposite subconsciously, without engaging the brain’s higher mental functions. As academics who have devoted their careers to trying to understand the Lady Heterodyne, we can assure you that the more you think about it, the creepier it gets.
16 When the Jägermonsters were absorbed into the Baron’s forces, one of the conditions was that they stay out of their former home, Mechanicsburg. It was thought that they retained too many memories, loyalties, and associations with the place, and if they were ever to be rehabilitated, it would be best to remove them from a place where their assorted cruelties and atrocities were enshrined on various public monuments and featured in children’s books.
17 The Jägers are remarkably close mouthed about the process that made them into Jägers, a secret of the Heterodynes that they appear ready to carry to their graves. However they talk quite freely and at great length about what it means to be a Jäger. The Jägertroth is the blood vow that one made before the Jägerification process was begun. It involves serving the Heterodyne family above all else, being willing to die for them (any number of times), and an acknowledgement that this vow is binding beyond the limits of time, space, death, and the perceived three dimensions. It is, according to all accounts, a pretty big deal.
18 At this point in history, the Empire of the Pax Transylvania controlled much of the continent of Europa. Thus, one would hardly be expected to believe that one little island nation to the west could cause any serious problems. You would be quite wrong. Due to England’s extensive trading fleet, loyal colonies, cosmopolitan citizenry, and, of course, Her Undying Majesty, Queen Albia, powerbrokers around the globe refused to call a winner in the event of a straight-up war. Diplomatic relations between the Baron and England had started out cordial enough. Indeed, the British had been instrumental in helping the nascent Empire clear out some of the more entrenched nests of Revenants, Slaver Wasps, and Pirates in Western Europa. However, as the Empire had continued to expand in power, territory, influence, and market share, relations had cooled considerably. Luckily, both Empires were governed by genuine geniuses, who knew enough to stay out of each other’s hair.
CHAPTER 3
Your Majesty, it is with great chagrin that I must again report our failure to assassinate the Heterodyne.
Considering the importance of the assignment, I followed your Majesty’s advice and sent in not one team, but two. The second was led by none other than Don Giorello of Venice, whom you may recall, having served your Majesty so admirably in the affair of the burning windmill.
According to him, the infiltration of Mechanicsburg and even of Castle Heterodyne was easy enough. It was once they were inside that things fell apart.
I have provided, for your edification, a verbatim transcription of Don Giorello’s debriefing:
The castle itself is alive. I say this now, to try to explain that which happened to myself and to my team, may God have mercy upon their souls. I understand that this might be considered a blasphemous statement, but I find that after the experiences of the last few days, I no longer care overly much for the opinions of a God who would allow such a thing to exist upon this sphere.
So. The castle, it is a constructed thing of stone and iron. A building where people live and eat and sleep. But it is also alive, and more than alive. It has intelligence. It is sentient. Furthermore, do not try to conceive of it as some ordinary beast, but rather like some enormous protean creature that is not relegated to one set configuration!
…Forgive me. I did not mean to roar so. No, I am calm now, sir. My state of mind will perhaps be best explained by my tale.
We gained access to the castle with an ease that should have warned us that there was something not right. I believe now that it was aware of us as soon as we entered, but allowed us to penetrate deeply within. I suspect—no, I firmly believe that this was so we would not be able to easily escape its influence.
The shape of our predicament unfolded slowly. No matter where we went, we encountered no other person, although we had, as planned, entered on the night that Bludtharst Heterodyne was throwing a Grand Fête for his field commanders. We heard music. The sound of many people. We were able to see brightly lit rooms filled with revelers through the windows, but no matter where we went, we were alone. No guards. No servants. No prisoners. No monsters. We began to think that if there were ghosts, than we were they.
More worrying was when we tried to leave
. We could not. Never could we find a room with a window facing outwards. Never could we find a door that led anywhere but deeper into the castle. Doors behind us sealed themselves shut, melted into nothingness, or opened not onto the rooms whence we had come, but onto solid walls.
After two days of this, our nerve broke. We yelled. We begged for the Heterodynes’ guards to find us. We tried crawling out of the windows, only to find ourselves crawling back into the very rooms we had left. While we slept, the rooms themselves would change shape, or abut different rooms than when we had last looked. Eventually they began to do this, not while we slept, but before our very eyes as we watched.
Six of my people were crushed or impaled by hidden mechanisms and traps. Some instantly, some hung screaming for almost an hour.
In the end, the last three of my people simultaneously killed each other, and of this sin I absolved them. In the end, only I remained. We had been inside for close to five days without food or sufficient water, and I was lying near insensate upon the ground, too weak to move and resigned to death.
Suddenly, a door opened, and in strode the devil, Bludtharst Heterodyne himself. He saw me and gave a great shout of surprise. Then a terrible voice—a voice I know never came from the throat of man nor beast—arose from everywhere. “Forgive me, Master. He is but an interloper with whom I was having some sport.”
“Well he gave me a turn, you wretched thing,” Bludtharst declared. “Toss him out.”
The monstrous voice spoke again: “But, Master,” it said, “he still lives. I am not yet done with him.”
“Then let this be a lesson to you,” the Heterodyne said dismissively, “to not leave your trash lying about where I might trip over it. Send him on his way. At once!”
The next thing I knew, I awoke to discover that I had been tossed upon a night soil cart that was passing out through the town gates.
When he had finished, Giorello broke down into tears and had to be sedated.
I have placed him under observation for his own safety, as I greatly fear that he will attempt suicide. In my judgment, he is a broken man and is no longer fit for field service.
As to the veracity of his account, I cannot say. While preposterous on the surface, it does corroborate stories and anecdotes I have heard from disparate sources over the years. Thus, I would strongly recommend against further attempts to infiltrate Castle Heterodyne.
—Report from Baron Andrzej Petr Orczy, head of the Department of Assassination and Assorted Unpleasantness for Andronicus Valois, the Storm King. From the Storm King Collection of the British Museum.
Zola waited impatiently as one of her Tall Men twisted the dial a final degree and gingerly tapped a red button. There was a long, tense pause; then he gave a small shriek as the door before him slid aside. When he realized that he was not dead, a grin of relief spread across his face. “I did it!”
Zola scowled. “And about time,” she declared. “I want to get inside. We’re being watched.”
One of her other Tall Men cleared his throat. “Forgive me, my lady, but it is only due to Tiktoffen’s notes that we got through at all. We weren’t expecting difficulty so soon.” His eyes flicked upwards despite himself, “And I suspect even this could have been avoided.”
Zola glanced upwards. There was yet another of her Tall Men, hanging head down—impaled upon a grim metal arm that had unfolded from the ceiling. This device, which terminated in a wicked spike, would be horrific enough, but the machine had then used the screaming man to scrub out a message in blood that still oozed its way down the wall:
THE HETERODYNE MUST ENTER ALONE.
The girl rolled her eyes at these theatrics but had to concede that it might have a dampening effect upon the enthusiasm of her assistants. This was a situation where a firm whip hand was called for.
“Be that as it may, I shall play this by my rules.” She then hardened her voice. “We shall all enter together.” The remaining men had been trained well enough—they knew that there was no option other than outright rebellion, and they had not been selected for their independence of spirit. Glumly, they formed up in ranks behind her and stepped through the doorway, which instantly slammed shut behind them.
While her Tall Men cringed, Zola coolly examined the area in which they found themselves. This had once been a main entrance to Castle Heterodyne and it had been decorated to impress. Inlaid constellations picked out in semi-precious stones were just visible behind the grime that coated the barrel-vaults high overhead. Cobweb-festooned chandeliers dangled, unlit.
The paneled walls were decorated with enormous paintings depicting the great capital cities of Europa—apparently in the aftermath of a visit from the Heterodynes. Here was Vienna in flames. There was Berlin, still and silent, carpeted in an array of exotic fungi. Strange, shadowy shapes crept through the recognizable ruins of Paris.
This last was the only one that seemed to affect the girl—she gave a slight shudder and quickly turned away.
The hallway suddenly flared into brilliance as half a hundred lamps came alive. The candelabra were wrought in an astonishing variety of disquieting shapes—figures of men, women, and bizarre creatures writhing in what would appear to be agony.
Beneath the grime and rubble, the terrazzo floor—with its fabled madness-inducing non-Euclidian geometric patterns—could still be glimpsed beneath the now tattered carpet.
Zola took a deep breath. To finally be here… She squared her shoulders. This is where it got dangerous. A second look around the area and this time she noted a plethora of paint and chalk marks. Hastily scrawled signs and sigils warned of the thousand and one traps that lined the hallway.
She turned to her Tall Men and almost screamed in frustration. They had actually spread out and were examining the nearest walls with interest.
“Freeze, you fools!” Sensibly, they did. Even behind their goggles, she could see their eyes desperately swiveling in her direction.
“Now listen to me,” she said, foot tapping. “This is probably the best-mapped area of the Castle, but it is also one of the most dangerous. You must follow my lead.”
She pointed downwards. “Avoid any area of the floor marked in white. It is a trap that will kill you.”
She pointed upwards. “Do not stand beneath any area on the ceiling marked in red. It is a trap that will kill you.”
She caught one of her men gazing in fascination at a wall sconce depicting a golden lady entwined with some sort of cephalopod. “Do not touch any metal surface. It is a trap that will kill you.”
The man guiltily lowered his hand. “Are you trying to frighten us?”
Zola ground her teeth. “Of course I am! This place is dangerous! It is twisted, and diabolical and worst of all—”
Too late she saw another of her men reaching for a gold coin glittering innocently upon the floor. “NO!” she screamed, but it was too late. A trapdoor split open beneath him, sending him screaming into the darkness. There was a pause, and then the trapdoor rose back into place with a hiss. The coin glittered enticingly in the darkness.
Involuntarily, they all took a step back. Zola swallowed. “A—And worst of all, this place likes to think that it has…a sense of humor.”
They all kept close to her after that, as she headed deeper into the castle.
Professor Hristo Tiktoffen trudged down the Hall of Nasty Iron Springs.19
He moved with a distracted look on his face as he sorted through an enormous notebook, generously interleaved with additional notes and maps. Most of the prisoners that inhabited Castle Heterodyne had learned to walk very carefully indeed, and it was not uncommon for them to take several minutes to decide where to next place their foot. Tiktoffen trod confidently, to the awe of those around him. It was whispered that he and the Castle had reached…an accommodation.
He came to a large metal door and, with a small grunt, shoved it open, revealing a large cavernous space. Within, cyclopean gears were frozen mid-turn, teeth and gear shafts dull beneat
h years of accumulated dust and grime.
He heard a faint, rhythmic tapping coming from behind a wall of interlocked gears larger than millstones. Tiktoffen cleared his throat. “Fraulein Wilhelm?”
The tapping stopped and a shock of delicately shaded pink hair appeared between two enormous gear teeth. Its owner peered cautiously at the professor, then grinned and dodged around the machinery to stand before him.
Tiktoffen gave her an avuncular smile and checked his notes. “Anything for my books today?”
Sanaa Wilhelm absent-mindedly scrubbed at a spot of grime on her orange coverall as she pondered. “I think so, Professor.” She closed her eyes in concentration. “I was summoned to the north wall of the Room of Lead. I reconnected fifteen copper cables behind the third panel. That was at four thirty-six exactly.20 There was a sort of a hum…and then nothing.”
Tiktoffen’s eyebrows rose. “Four thirty-six?” He shuffled through his stack of papers, muttering to himself. Suddenly he gave a small cry of satisfaction.
“Yes! Tark was in the Gallery of Razors—” He double-checked his notes. “—And yes! They flexed at four thirty-six!” He made a small notation on one of the sheets and tucked his pencil away with a glow of satisfaction. “Ten points for you!”
Sanaa’s eyes lit up in pleasure. “Ten? Thank you!”
Tiktoffen was already flipping through his notes and waved a hand. “De nada. We’ve been looking for the Razor’s power for over three years.”
Sanaa got a faraway look in her eyes. “Ten points,” she said to herself, just to hear it. “Wow! That’s worth at least two months off my sentence! So to get out of here, I only have to get—Ow!”
As fast as a striking snake, Tiktoffen had lashed out and clipped the side of the girl’s head. “Fool!” His jovial face had hardened instantly. “Never total your points out loud!”
