Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

He tried levering himself up from the bed. With a detached air, Sun tapped a muscle in Klaus’s shoulder, and the Baron collapsed back, grimacing. “Sun—”

“You shouldn’t move.”

“I need to see what we’re up against.”

“You’ll damage yourself.”

Klaus snorted and waved a bandage-wrapped arm. “I doubt any damage I will incur will be worse than this, and if it is, I’m in no better place for it, now, am I?”

Sun looked at him and with a sigh, quickly detached the assorted drips, feeds, and catheters, taking care to do so in the most painful way possible. By the end of the procedure, Klaus was paler, but still determined. He thrashed about feebly and sank back onto his bed.

“There,” Sun declared with a touch of satisfaction. “Are you convinced? You cannot—”

“DuPree,” Klaus interrupted. “Get me to that window. No matter what.”

DuPree nodded and gave Klaus a “thumbs up” signal. The Baron glanced at Sun. “I think you could construct a simple—” DuPree grasped the edge of the Baron’s bed and tipped it over with a crash. The Baron blacked out briefly from the pain. This was no doubt a blessing, considering the agony he experienced when he awoke a few seconds later to find that DuPree was dragging him by his shattered leg towards the window.

Sun forced himself to remain still as DuPree jerked, pulled, and slammed the gasping man into position. This was not the first time that Sun had patched the Baron up, and Klaus was one of the worst patients he had ever had to put up with. While he himself would never do what DuPree was doing, he reasoned that there was a small chance that this might actually teach Klaus a lesson.

A final gurgle of pain signaled DuPree draping Klaus over the windowsill. She patted him on the back and his knuckles whitened.

“Th-th-thank you, DuPree,” he gasped. “That should be the worst of it.”

Sun stepped up. “Please stick around, Captain, you can haul him back.”

Klaus’s eyes rolled back up into his head.

Back on the lead war-clank, the Duke exclaimed in delight. “Oh, I say! Someone is coming out! To surrender, I imagine.”

Indeed, at the base of the great ironbound gate, a small postern door had swung open and a single man stepped forth.

Atop the wall, Herr Diamant frowned. “That’s not one of the City Council.”

Ardsley Wooster took one look and felt as if the floor had dropped from beneath his feet. “It’s Master Gilgamesh! He’s here!”

Krosp’s ears flicked forward with interest. He gazed at the five gigantic metal behemoths and then back to the single small figure striding out towards them. “Well. This could solve some problems,” he opined.

Agatha felt her breath catch in her throat. “What is he doing? He’s all alone! He’ll be killed!”

Zeetha raised her eyebrow. “Oooh? And why do you care?”

Agatha’s face went red. “Because… Because the Baron will blame me?”

Zeetha nodded with a small smile. “Oh. Of course.” She patted Agatha’s arm. “We’ll just root for him then.”

Agatha didn’t know it, but she was on Gilgamesh’s mind at the moment. He was growing uncomfortably aware that, for someone as smart as everyone insisted that he was, he could be just as idiotic as anyone else who wanted to impress a girl. Surprisingly, he took some comfort from this.

Occasionally Gil looked at the silly doings and squabbles of the people around him and wondered if he was actually a member of the same species. He knew that this thought probably hit most people at some time in their lives, but Gil had the added factor of having a father who could easily have made it a legitimate question.

Thus—on those occasions when Gil found himself doing anything that he had ever seen or read about that had made him roll his eyes at the foolishness of the human race—he made sure that he took a moment to cherish the experience.

He toiled to the top of a small hillock and craned his neck up at the lead machine that now towered over him. I think this is worth about four seconds of cherishing, he mused, then I can go straight to terror.

The faces of several dozen uniformed men peered down at him. A few of them uncertainly raised their rifles. At the sight, Gil felt a small wave of hope. Muzzle-loading muskets. Whoever had financed this expedition had spent all the treasure on the walkers and bought the soldiers whatever weapons they could find handy. No doubt they expected the town to roll over at the sight of the giant machines. This meant that if it came to shooting, as long as he could avoid the first volley, he had some chance of getting away before they reloaded.

Gil stood tall, checked his stick a final time, took a deep breath, and bellowed upwards, “What is your business here?”

Wooster felt a jostle, and turned. To his surprise, the tops of the walls were filling with people. Townspeople. They were pouring up the stairwells, grumbling and querulous.

“I say,” he said. “What is this all about?”