Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

“What do I have to do?” Gil asked the air around him. “I just took down an entire army of war clanks and I’m still being treated like a halfwit child!” He pointed at Vole. “Now you listen very carefully. The Heterodyne girl is not to be harmed. I won’t allow it!”

Vole cocked an eyebrow, and then launched himself, snarling. “Hyu jabberink veaklink!” He swiped at Gil with a clawed hand that, if it had connected, would have knocked him back several meters. He seemed surprised when the younger man merely pirouetted like a dancer and sighed.

Vole screamed, “Hy vill keel hyu! Vill be onfortunate accident! Hyu poppa vill stitch hyu back togedder vitout de schtupid bits!” Then he lunged.

Again Vole missed, but this time, as he sailed past, Gil grabbed the back of Vole’s head and added his own strength, sending the Jäger face-first into the wall. “I keep trying to be reasonable.” Gil muttered. “To be fair.” He deflected another attack. “I try to talk to people.”

Vole made another charge, which Gil stepped quickly into. He gripped Vole’s tunic and tossed him over his shoulder. Vole crashed to the ground on his back—hard. “And no one ever takes it as anything other than weakness!” Gil finished.

Vole raised his head and shook it. Gil looked down at him. “You listen to me trying to be civilized, and you all think, ‘Oh, he’s nothing. Him, we can ignore. Him, we can push around. We can do whatever we want—he won’t be able to stop us.’”

He turned away. Vole flexed his back, sprung to his feet with a single movement and, screaming, launched himself at Gil from behind.

With perfect timing, Gil bent and gently placed his stick on the ground. Vole sailed past overhead.

Gil stood up. “No one ever takes me seriously unless I shout and threaten like a cut-rate stage villain.” He sighed again.

Vole tried again and suddenly found himself seized by Gil, who effortlessly held him up above his head. “Well, you know what?” the young man asked conversationally, “I can do crazy. I really can. And it looks like I’m going to have to.”

With that, he slammed Vole to the ground. “Agatha is in danger.” Another slam. “This whole town is in danger.” Another. “If I’m going to be able to help her at all, I’ll have to give up all this ‘being reasonable’ garbage—” Another slam, and this time he somersaulted up and came down hard on the Jäger’s head with both feet. “And show you idiots what kind of madboy you’re really dealing with!”

Vole thrashed slightly and Gil kicked him in the face. A sudden realization made him pause. His eyes got wide for a long moment. “Oh. No. Oh no!” He again addressed the air with the attitude of someone experiencing a terrible epiphany. “This…this must be how my father feels all the time!”

He thought about this for another moment and sighed. Then he glanced down. He pulled Vole’s head up so that he could glare directly into the now-terrified eyes. “So. Are you going to follow orders? Or are you going to keep attacking me until I have to kill you—at which point I’ll just have to use one of these Jägers instead?” So saying, he hooked a thumb towards the astonished group that had watched him dispatch Vole.

This attention shook Ognian out of his stupefaction and he raised a point of order. “Ectually, ve dun take orders from hyu.”

Instantly three fists smashed into his jaw, sending him to the ground.

“What was that?” Gil asked.

“Notting!” Four voices answered as one. “Ve’s goot!”

Gil turned back to Vole. “So?”

“No!” The cowed Jäger bleated. “I’z sorry, sir! Vot iz hyu orders, sir!”

Gil nodded. “I am going with these Jägers. Tell no one except my father that you have seen me. I have much to do, so I shall be busy. Right now, I want you to find the body of whoever was in charge of those war clanks. The sooner you get his head to my father or Dr. Sun, the easier it will be to get coherent memories. Do you understand?”

“SIR! YES, SIR!”

“Then go.” And pausing only to grab his hat, Vole loped off towards the burning machines.

The group watched him go in silence. Finally Dimo nodded respectfully. “Not bad.”

Gil shrugged. “My father once wrote a monograph on how to communicate in the workplace.”³⁴

“…Iz dot so?”

Gil nodded. “All seven popes ordered it burned.”³⁵

Dimo snorted. “Vell, Hy guess hyu iz feelin’ better.”

Gil stared off at the burning machines. “Is he gone?” His voice was a whisper.

Dimo blinked. “Vot?”

“Vole. Is he gone?”

“Yah. Uv cawrze. He run off…”

“Good.” And with the gentlest of sighs, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach collapsed face forward, completely unconscious.

The Jägers stared down at him. Ognian rubbed his jaw and grinned. “Hy likes dis guy!” He leaned down and swung Gil up over his shoulder with one hand. “He’s fonny! Let’s get him fixed op qvick, yah?”

Jenka winked. “Hif only becawze hyu Mizz Agatha likes him!”

All the Jägers perked up at this. “Iz dot so?”

Jenka nodded. “Accordink to de Generals.”