Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

Suddenly, there was a rattling of stone upon stone, and before Agatha’s astounded eyes, the rubble on the ground shifted, wobbled, and slowly floated upward. A vast cloud of bricks and paving stones drifted upwards, rotated in place for several seconds, and then condensed into a narrow, irregular path of stones that floated in mid-air between the two doorways.

There was a final “clink,” and the Castle spoke. “There. Our own little ‘Bridge of Trust.’ Anytime you are ready, ‘My Lady.’”

Moloch stared at the floating path in horror. “Ready to die, you mean. There is no way I’m going—”

“Correct.” The Castle was serious now. “The Heterodyne must enter alone.”

Agatha nodded. She pointed to Moloch. “Please don’t kill him while I’m gone.”

Moloch looked appalled. “Hold on—you’re not actually going, are you?”

Agatha took a deep breath. “Of course I am.” And she stepped out upon the pathway. She expected it to give slightly or to sway, but the stones beneath her feet were as solid as if they were resting upon rock. She had listened to enough of the stories that the circus’ aerialists had told around the fires at night to know not to look down, though this was proving difficult to adhere to. She took a step. Then another…and another after that. She was about to release the breath she had been holding, when a clunking sound caused her to freeze. She turned as quickly as she dared and looked back in time to see the stones that were positioned against the doorway begin to wobble and then fall, one by one, to the courtyard below. Slowly the disintegrating edge moved towards her.

Agatha sighed, turned back, and continued onward.

“You’re very trusting,” the Castle remarked.

“And you’re very annoying.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll drop you?”

“No.”

Now the Castle sounded peeved. “Why not? I could, you know.”

Agatha continued moving. “You’re like the people in Mechanicsburg, I think. You want a Heterodyne. You keep threatening to kill me, but you’re not sure, so you’re herding me towards the library where I might actually be able to repair you, if I am who I say I am.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “Besides, from how much fun you’re evidently having from these games, I imagine you’d be disappointed if I didn’t survive long enough to take whatever test there is to prove my legitimacy.”

“Games? I don’t know what—”

Agatha gestured downwards. “This path, for one. You could have easily made it three meters wide and as straight as a ruler.”

A note of embarrassment crept into the Castle’s voice. “Yes… well…”

“So, thank you.”

The Castle clearly hadn’t been expecting this. “For what?”

Agatha stepped off of the bridge and into the doorway. As she had surmised, a dark passage twisted off to the right and vanished into the darkness. “For getting me so annoyed that I didn’t have a chance to get scared or disoriented. You did that.”

The Castle was silent.

“Now no more games,” Agatha said.

Behind her the last of the stones pattered to the ground. “Agreed,” the Castle said. Then the floor opened beneath Agatha’s feet and she dropped out of sight.

A fall, a jolt, a disorienting slide in the darkness. With a cry of shocked surprise, Agatha crashed through a wooden lattice and landed upon the floor of a new room. She took a minute to catch her breath and rub at her painful hindquarters. “I thought I said—”

“SILENCE!” With the Castle’s roar, iron shutters slammed back, revealing a magnificent stained glass window. Through this, the afternoon sun washed the room with bright shades of red, yellow, and purple. Agatha stared.

The room was large and high ceilinged. Directly beneath the window was an unadorned altar of black stone. The walls and the ceiling were lined with bones. Human bones, inset and tessellated in patterns that caught the eye and always brought it back to the altar.

Agatha had heard of churches decorated like this, walls and furnishings supplied by victims of plague or war, but reading alone had failed to prepare her for the actual experience. She took a small step and almost fell over. The floor was paved with skulls.

“This is no longer a game,” the Castle said. “This is where you will prove your claim, or where you will die.

“Over the centuries, there have been other times when my masters have gone missing. You are not the first stranger who has come to me claiming the family name. Sometimes they strode in leading armies. Sometimes they skulked in on moonless nights. One flew in on wings made of bone and brass. All claimed to be lost Heterodynes, and all found their way here to this room to be tested.

“Sometimes they were delusional. Sometimes they were…false men. Puppet things of shadow and dead meat. Sometimes they were simply…honestly…wrong. They never left.

“Now it is your turn. Take comfort in knowing that if you fail, there will still be a place for you here, forever.”

Agatha took a deep breath. “Then let’s get started.”