Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

Dimo grinned. “And he likes her too! Dot’s mighty goot to hear.” He glanced at Gil, “He seems like a sturdy vun. And vit Mizz Agatha, hy tink dot’s gunna be impawtent.”

Maxim set his hat at a jaunty angle. “Hy vill teach heem how to impress de gorls!”

Ognian gave Gil a pat. “Hy vill teach heem about de birds and de veasles!”³⁶

Dimo assured Jenka, “Und hy vill teach heem how to avoid dose two.”

She nodded. “Den ve might ektually see more Heterodynes yet.”

The current Heterodyne was kneeling on Moloch von Zinzer’s chest, her gloved hand frantically clamped over his screaming mouth. “Quiet,” she hissed. “Quiet! I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you act stupid!”

Moloch’s scream dwindled to nothing. Agatha wasn’t sure if this was because he was listening, or because she was blocking his air intake. “Now I’m going to take my hand away. I’m giving you one chance. Don’t make me regret it!”

She gingerly removed her glove and Moloch took a deep breath. Then he spoke—very fast. “I really must apologize for threatening you back on the airship. I was really scared and under a lot of stress and—”

Agatha gently placed her hand back over his mouth, cutting off his stream of words. “Keep quiet,” she said gently, “and we’ll call it even.” Moloch looked surprised. “Really? You’re not going to kill me?”

“Not unless I have to.”

“I can work with that.”

They rolled apart and climbed to their feet. Moloch examined her. Agatha had changed since their time on Castle Wulfenbach. When he had first met her, she had obviously been a soft townie. From what he could see, she was now in much better shape. But more importantly, mentally, Agatha had seemed to be in a vague, pleasant fog a lot of the time, occasionally snapping into a terrifying sharp focus. Now… she seemed even more focused. A lot more focused. Looking at her now…she was obviously watching him, but her eyes—her eyes were moving. Constantly. In quick little snaps. Every other snap brought them back to Moloch, but she was looking at everything.

Moloch had always had a good “survival sense.” He knew when it was time to retreat. When to avoid the gaze of a sergeant looking for “volunteers.” This sense had only been sharpened here in Castle Heterodyne, where a misstep could cause him to be killed in any number of unexpected ways.

That sense was screaming at him now. Screaming in the same way as when he had found himself hauled up before Baron Klaus Wulfenbach himself and discovered that the Ruler of all Europa had made a mistake. About him.

The Baron had thought Moloch a Spark because of a machine that Agatha had built. He had never really understood why they had all automatically assumed it was him and not Agatha but he was not going to be the one to tell the Baron that he’d made a stupid mistake. So he’d tried to fool the smartest man in Europa.

There was a certain perverse pride to be felt because he had managed to do it for longer than two minutes, but at the three-minute mark, the fear of discovery had begun to erode the satisfaction, and by the time the whole thing had come crashing down several days later, he had almost been relieved that it was all over.

There were some who had argued that his sentence to Castle Heterodyne had been a bit harsh, considering that it was usually reserved for deranged Spark criminals, excessively loyal minions, constructs, and such.

However, it was also the traditional punishment for those who had impersonated Sparks, and thus, here he had been sent.

Moloch had no illusions about some hypothetical degree of “fairness” about life in general and his in particular. He just did what he always did—the best he could with the crap he had, and, occasionally, life handed him little unexpected victories. He wondered if this was supposed to be one of them. Schadenfreude did not come naturally to Moloch. He had to admit that although she had been the root cause of his current set of problems, Agatha had never actually betrayed him, done him direct harm, or treated him as anything other than a comrade in misfortune.

Thus he discovered that he could actually work up a measure of sympathy for her under the current circumstances.

“So, the Baron finally caught you, eh? Took longer than I thought it would,” he admitted.

Agatha shrugged. “He didn’t catch me and he isn’t going to. I came in here on my own.”

Sympathy went out the window. “That’s insane!” He considered what he had said. “Oh. Right. You’re supposed to be a real Heterodyne, aren’t you?”

She smiled. “That’s what I’m told.”

He thought about this some more. “Wait a minute. That means you’re like… you’re like the Queen here or something.”

Agatha nodded. “Or something.”

“So get us out of here!”

She sighed. “I’m working on it.” She looked around. “This is the kitchen? It’s smaller than I’d have expected.”