Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

Aboard the lead war clank, His Grace the Third Duke of some kingdom that technically no longer existed,²⁹ flashed his oversized teeth in a grin and adjusted his periscope. “Haw! We caught those fellows completely by surprise, General Selnikov.”

Behind him, His Lordship, late of Balan’s Gap, nodded. “Yes, that worked, at least.”

The duke fiddled with the scope. “Why, those are Jägers!” He looked up hopefully. “Shall I let the men shoot them?”

Selnikov considered this and then shook his head. “No. We’re still pretending that we want to do this without bloodshed.”

The duke looked at him. “Oh,” he said, pronouncing the “E.” “But surely they don’t count. They’re Jägers.”

“Anywhere else, perhaps. But this is Mechanicsburg. Never burn a bridge unless your foe is on it, Your Grace.” Selnikov rubbed his fingers together. “Does the air feel odd to you?”

The duke sucked on his teeth. “Odd?”

“Yes…sort of…greasy…” Selnikov frowned. He’d felt nervous. He’d felt this sort of thing before—but where?

Atop the city wall, the side of an elaborate set of chimney pots shivered and then swung aside, revealing the head of a metal stairway. From the shuff of dislodged dust emerged Agatha, Zeetha, Herr Diamant, von Mekkhan, Krosp, and Wooster.

Zeetha looked around. “And where are we now?”

“Top of the outer wall,” Herr Diamant informed them. “The old passages can take you almost anywhere if you take the time to learn them.” He pointed to an ancient bank of steam-driven arbalests. “The old Heterodynes liked to operate the defenses personally.” He started walking and indicated a mass of rusted tubes topped by a corroded copper gargoyle, its mouth stretched impossibly wide. “The Baron disabled the controls to the screamer guns long ago, but if you’d like to take a look at them—”

Agatha interrupted, pointing to a group of men intent on a device that gleamed with polished glass and fresh grease. “Screamer guns? Is that what they’re working on?”

Diamant shook his head. “Oh, no, that’s something new.”

Agatha was intrigued. From where she stood, the device looked like a sleek brass cylinder, mounted to the stone walkway by a set of heavy-duty ceramic insulators. Thick power cables looped off in both directions. As they watched, a worker in thick goggles threw a final switch and, with a crackle, a large glass dome filled with flickering tendrils of blue energy. The crew gave a small cheer as the man shut and bolted a final metal hatch. Only then, as they turned away and began gathering their tools, did they notice Agatha and her friends.

The man in the goggles stepped forward, stripping off thick rubber gloves. “Why, it’s Herr Diamant, yes? We have all the supplies we need, thank you.”

Another technician closed the cover on a steel box and carefully snapped shut the clasps before straightening up. “Indeed, we’re done. We have just turned everything on.” He waved his hand and Agatha now saw that another cylinder, with its own flickering dome, stood some distance away and another beyond that. Similar devices were spaced out atop the wall as far as she could see.

“What are they?” she asked.

Diamant looked embarrassed. “We’re not sure. Some project of young Wulfenbach’s.”

The second technician leaned forwards and dropped his voice conspiratorially. “Don’t ask us. But we’ve been unloading and installing them since he arrived this morning.”

Further disclosure was cut off by the team leader lightly tapping the speaker on the head with a spanner. “Quiet, you.”

Meanwhile Agatha’s eyes had grown large. “Wait—you’re saying that Gil is—”

“BATTLE CLANKS!” The shout came from Wooster, who had been looking outwards. “Huge ones!”

Everyone ran to the wall and stared out at the vast contraptions hauling themselves toward the gates.

Agatha clasped her hands together. “Magnificent,” she breathed.

“They are here to attack us,” Krosp reminded her.

“Yes!” she agreed. “I can’t wait to see them in action!”

Herr Diamant smiled. “Well, that’s encouraging.”

Krosp stared at him.

The old man shrugged. “What? Her grandfather used to open the gates for things like this, just so he could get a better look.”

In the Great Hospital, Klaus Wulfenbach stirred. Outside, a resonant, mechanical sound was building. Bangladesh DuPree gazed out the window. When Klaus spoke, she noticed that his voice was already stronger than it had been at breakfast. “Those are the Mechanicsburg Alarm Gongs. DuPree, what’s happening?”

DuPree’s shrug became a businesslike snap—knives appearing in her hands as the door opened. The knives vanished when she saw that it was only Dr. Sun.

“The city is under attack. An army of war-clanks. Coming up to the Western Gate.”

Klaus glanced at the nearest window. “I should have a decent view from here. Get me—Ow!”

The exclamation came from Sun lightly tapping Klaus on the chest. “Oh, so that still hurts, does it?”

“Of course it hurts,” Klaus snarled. “You know every pressure point and nerve cluster I have. I still have to get up.”