Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

The group stared at her and then, like a terrified amoeba, slowly crept down the hallway.

Darkness.

Light.

Darkness again.

Light. Ah. Eyelids. A vague cloud of sentience slowly coalesced and realized that it was Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. I’m still alive, he realized. Yay.

There was a creak from beside him, and an unfamiliar woman’s voice. “Ah! You’re awake! Relax, you’re safe.”

Gil rolled his head towards the speaker and caught sight of her. He tensed. The woman was young, not yet twenty-five, he guessed. She was muscular, a fighter of some sort, if the scars she carried were any indication. She wore mostly leather and canvas, with two unusual-looking swords strapped to her back. The light in the room was dim, to spare his eyes, he guessed, but he could see that her hair was a rich green.

“Am I?” he asked.

The girl raised her eyebrows and grinned. “Yup. Couldn’t be safer.”

She stood up, went to a tray on a nearby dresser and poured something into a pewter mug. While she was busy, Gil looked around. He wasn’t tied down or restrained. He was feeling somewhat unsteady—a glance at his lower legs revealed several bandages. The astonishing thing about the room was how it was decorated. The only word that applied was “excessively.” Every centimeter looked like it had been painted or carved by someone with too much time, a rather limited imagination, and a dearth of artistic talent. The scenes portrayed tended to be battles, monsters, and monsters battling with other monsters. Another glance and he realized that the more gaudily dressed monsters were supposed to be Jägers. Impossible, deformed, grandiose Jägers sporting towering, elaborate, impractical headgear, but clearly Jägers.

The room had only one exit, which appeared to be unlocked. There was nothing within reach that could be used as a weapon, or indeed, really anything useful at all within reach. It appeared to be a repurposed storeroom of some sort. The open beamwork of the ceiling seemed excessive for a house and there were no windows, so they were in a commercial structure of some sort.

Either the walls were thick or there wasn’t anything happening outside the door. The air was close and had an odd, gamey odor that tugged at his memory, overlaid with the smells of antiseptic, unwashed bodies and, oddly, old beer.

The bed he was on looked like a standard issue hospital cot, with linen sheets and wool blankets. The dresser was sturdy wood, elaborately carved, as was the chair the girl had been sitting in. The floor was dressed stone.

Gil made this examination while the girl was getting his drink and composed his face by the time she returned to his side.

“I’ll bet you have questions,” she said as she sat back down, “I know I have.” She indicated the drink in her hand. “Sit up and have some of this.”

Gil moved carefully and found it surprisingly easy. His legs stung a bit but it could have been far worse.

He settled himself back and reached for the mug, calculating furiously. If he threw the drink at the girl, that should give him enough time to—

“Don’t try it,” she said.

“What?”

“Just now. You were thinking that if you threw your drink at me, you might be able to overpower me.”

Gil tried to keep his face noncommittal. The girl smiled. “Body language. Eye movement. You tensed the muscles of your arms… You couldn’t do it, by the way.”

Gil nodded and sipped the drink. This, to his surprise, turned out to be some sort of spicy concoction, redolent of lemon and malt. He sipped it again. “I suppose I couldn’t,” he ventured.

The girl regarded him. “So I’m curious. People you trust told you they were going to see to you, you woke up, so if I was going to hurt you, I could’ve done it a hundred times over, and yet, when you saw me, you got all tense. Now why is that?”

Damn my father and his love of secrets, Gil thought. He regarded the girl and spoke slowly. “I’ve been told that someone who looks like you might be out to kill me.”

The girl’s reaction was unexpected. She sat up straight and grinned so wide that she brightened the dim little room. “Reeeeally?”

That was when Gil threw his drink into her face—or—wait—where was the mug?

It was in the girl’s hand, not a drop out of place. She grinned again and took a sip, and made a face at the taste. “Very nice,” she said. She casually tossed him the full mug, which Gil caught in midair. “I might even have been in trouble if you weren’t messed up.” She paused. “And if I were drunk and had a broken arm and—”

“Yes! I get it, thank you.”

“Good. Now drink that up, it’s supposed to be good for you, and don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you.” She shrugged. “Not yet, anyway.” She paused for effect and made a devilish face. “Agatha wouldn’t like it.”

Everything else left Gil’s mind. He sat up. “Agatha! Where is she? Is she all right?”

The green-haired girl made a show of frowning sternly at him. “And why should I tell you? Weren’t you the one who just sent a Jäger to kill her?”