Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

“Relax. I am the Heterodyne. I’ll get the Castle repaired and then you’ll be free to go and I’ll be out of your life.”

The eyes that Moloch turned upon her almost caused her to miss a step. They were the eyes of a man who has seen many a proposed simple stroll down to the corner store devolve into a small war.

“Relax,” Agatha said reassuringly. “I have a plan.”

They turned a corner, and almost ran into Zola—the very faux-Heterodyne Agatha had hoped to avoid. She was resplendent in pink, striding confidently forward and followed by an interested crowd of prisoners. Walking attentively at her side was, unexpectedly, Agatha’s least favorite teacher from Transylvania Polygnostic University, Professor Silas Merlot.³⁹

The two groups ground to a halt and stared at each other for what was easily several seconds.

Merlot’s jaw snapped shut first. “You!” he breathed.

“RUN!” Agatha screamed, and took off.

To his horror, Moloch found himself running along behind her, the bag of tools banging against his shin with every step. “This is a terrible plan!” he shrieked.

“Who was that?” Zola demanded.

Merlot seemed frozen. “That was Miss Clay! It’s her fault that I’m in here! She ruined my life!”

Zola stared at him. “Miss Clay? You said that you were in here because of the Heterodyne girl.”

Merlot whirled upon her. “She is the Heterodyne girl! She is! And I am going to kill her for what she did to me!” With that he was pelting off after her, murder in his heart.

Professor Tiktoffen swallowed. “Good heavens. I’ve never seen Merlot act like that.” He turned to Zola. “You don’t think he’d really kill her, do you?”

Zola grimaced. “Well somebody had better, and the quicker the better!” She raised her voice so that all the prisoners heard her. “All of you! Find that girl! Freedom and gold for whoever kills her!” That did it. With a roar, the crowd followed.

As she ran, Agatha tried to examine the map that Herr Diamant had provided for her. As one would expect, trying to read an unfamiliar map of an unfamiliar place—while running with a mob of dangerous people determined to kill you hot on your heels, no less—was extraordinarily difficult. Finally Moloch couldn’t stand it any longer. “Where are we going?”

“Something called the Red Hall. Where is that?”

“Turn left here!”

They crashed through a doorway into a long, colonnaded hallway. Periodically there were doors and exits to stairwells. The walls here were still covered in graffiti but as Agatha flashed past, she realized that here most of it was actually instructions or warnings about what lay behind various doors. She also realized that Moloch was yelling at her. “This was a mistake! We’ll be trapped!”

“Not yet!” Agatha jogged forward, one eye on the map, counting under her breath. “Three… Fourth door… There! The fifth hallway! Come on!”

Moloch lunged forward, grabbed her shoulder, and dragged her to a halt. “Wait! We can’t go in there! That’s Uncharted Territory! It’s full of traps! The Castle will kill us for sure!”

“There they are!” They both turned to see a crowd of prisoners pour into the hall and head towards them.

With a scream, Moloch hoisted the toolbox up over his head in a semblance of protection and darted down the uncharted hall. Agatha followed. They had passed over ten meters in before Agatha realized they were no longer being followed. She stopped and turned back. Sure enough, the mob had stalled at the entrance, as surely as if by an invisible wall. “They’ve stopped,” she observed.

“Of course they stopped!” Moloch said bitterly. “They’re waiting to see us get turned inside out! Not even the Trapmasters ever got this far! We’re now completely at the mercy of an insane mechanical monster that has no mercy!”

A soft sound was all the warning Agatha had, but she shoved Moloch back in time so that the stone block that had fallen from the ceiling missed him completely. She raised her voice. “But it’s my insane mechanical monster and I’m here to make sure that it knows it!”

There was a pause and then a complete dearth of falling blocks. Agatha nodded. “Good. I think I’ve gotten it curious.” She held out a hand to help Moloch up. “Besides,” she said quietly, “At this point, we really don’t have much choice. We just have to keep going and hope for the best.”

The two of them took a final glance at the seething crowd at the hallway entrance and pushed onwards. In a moment, they had turned a corner and vanished.

The prisoners looked at each other and sullenly turned back, only to be met by Zola, striding towards them, growing visibly more furious with every step she took. “What are you fools doing?” She pointed down the hallway. “Go after them!”

A woman wreathed in veils made an obscene gesture. “Eat knives, cow. You go down that hallway, you die.”

In a single fluid movement, Zola dipped her hand to a holster at her waist, drew forth a compact little pistol, and shot the woman through the forehead.

The others stared at her. Zola took a shooter’s stance. “No. You die if you don’t go in.”