Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

Zola cut him off. “Yes, yes, I know. I’ve read your reports. ‘A priceless antiquarian thinking engine that could teach us about the very nature of consciousness and rational thought—blah blah blah.’”

“But it is,” Tiktoffen screamed in frustration.

Zola turned and regarded him fondly. “You Sparks are all alike. I promise you, Professor, when this is all over, you can take whatever parts you want and build yourself a chatty little gazebo somewhere.” The smile left her face and her voice hardened. “But today, Castle Heterodyne dies.”

Gil raised his eyebrows. “And you’re going to do this, how?”

Tiktoffen sighed and led them through a thick wooden door. They stepped into a large room filled with people and the sound of activity. The largest group was gathered around a brass pedestal set with blue glass spheres. It was slightly taller than the men who stood beside it and surrounded by a nest of cables and tools. All of the people in the room paused to stare at the newcomers as they entered. With a shiver, Gil realized that several of the more exceptional Sparks that his father had sentenced to service in the Castle were gathered in this room.

Zola indicated the device. “How will I kill the Castle? Simple. With this.”

Gil examined the device and felt another jolt of unwelcome surprise. Many of these parts would have required sophisticated manufacturing processes. He turned to Professor Tiktoffen. “Surely some of these components weren’t manufactured in the Castle. How did you get them in without anyone noticing?”

The professor shrugged nonchalantly but it was obvious that he appreciated the chance to brag a bit. “Patience, mostly. Now, some parts were here already—the old Heterodynes kept all sorts of useful machines—but it was easy enough to slip a little something extra in occasionally with the supply shipments. It wasn’t particularly difficult, since the Baron allows almost everything we ask for anyway.”

Zola now addressed a tall, intense man. “What is our status, Professor Diaz?”

The man scowled. “It is not yet ready, Señorita.”

“That is not what I wanted to hear.”

The professor made an exaggerated expression of dismay with his hands. “¿No? My heart, it weeps.”

Zola narrowed her eyes and her voice grew cold. “It might. What is the problem?”

Diaz snapped his fingers and a minion dragged another prisoner out from a side room. Despite the fact that he had obviously been worked over by someone who knew what they were doing, the man in manacles wore an arrogant smile. A long scar marred his face. “This cucaracha,” Diaz snarled, “has been intercepting the shipments. Not all of them, but he has managed to collect several of the parts that we need.”

The man’s grin widened. “That’s right, girlie. And that means that you gotta deal with me to get them!”

Zola’s expression was cold. “I see.” Smoothly, she took out her little pistol and fired a round through the man’s kneecap.

He screamed and dropped to the ground. Zola strode over to him and kicked his hands away from where they clutched at the wound. She placed her foot squarely on the shattered knee, leaned in, and tapped the barrel against the man’s head. “The question is, just how much of you will I have to deal with before I hear what I like?” She ground her foot down.

“In the cistern,” the man shrieked. “There’s an oilskin bag in the cistern!”

Zola straightened up and waved her hand. The man was dragged off, whimpering.

As Zola holstered her gun, she caught the look on Gil’s face. She looked grim. “My patience only stretches so far,” she said.

_______________

⁵⁷ After the Incredibly Brief Rebellion (two minutes, thirty-six seconds), Queeg Heterodyne had faced a bit of a problem. Family tradition dictated that the people of Mechanicsburg were not to be indiscriminately slain—but a rebellion had to be punished. His decree, although directly harming none, would ensure that the townspeople suffered torture and misery for generations.

⁵⁸ Stutter-Step, despite its obvious roots in Jewish Klezmer and African tribal rhythms, was, in fact, invented by a musically gifted construct named Two-Point-Five-Footed Fritz. Who was the house pianist in a Mechanicsburg brothel. Sadly, there are no known portraits of Fritz and thus the origin of his unusual name remains a source of pointless speculation.

⁵⁹ Double-Fortified Lingonberry Snap was possibly the most potent alcoholic beverage in Europa at this time. It was crafted by a complicated process that involved distillation, freezing, the application of mildly hallucinogenic fungi, and aging in specially seasoned stone crocks (which significantly cut down on the batches lost due to spontaneous combustion). Astonishingly, it was invented not by a Spark, but by a little old man in Switzerland who drank an Imperial Liter of the stuff every day, lived to one hundred and thirty-three, and whose funeral pyre burned uncontrollably for three days.

⁶⁰ People who refused to listen to technical experts didn’t last long in the armies of the Empire.