Fic: De Profundis 4/5
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Chapter 4
It’s Always the Crazy Times
Monday morning found Tarvek at his desk, sighing heavily as he read Violetta’s dispatch for the third time:
Lady Heterodyne’s really nice. I haven’t had much chance to talk to her, but I was close to her when the Doom Bell rang the second time, and she actually complimented me on my ability not to pass out. (Well, someone had to keep Bürgermeister Zuken from cracking his head open, not that it wouldn’t have been an improvement!) But the bad news is that she married the baron’s son the moment Dr. Yglyn finished the accession ceremony. And he’s always with her, and it seems like she’s always guarded either by Jägers or by this crazy swordswoman she met at a circus, and the baron’s in town, so I can’t just poison him, even if you ordered me to.
That’s it, then, Tarvek thought yet again, putting the letter down. He’d known the Order’s plan to install a fake Heterodyne heir was done for as soon as he’d heard from Tiktoffen that the real one was in Castle Heterodyne. But he’d thought he’d have time to go through with the other half of the plan, saving her heroically from an attack on the city, courting her, and eventually marrying her. Now... no, he couldn’t risk assassinating the baron’s son. Even if it worked, either the baron would find out and come down on him like a ton of bricks, or Lady Heterodyne would find out and refuse to marry him. Or both.
How had the baron managed to outflank them this way? Had he gotten hold of the Order’s plans? If so, how much did he know?
And what in the name of Newton was Gil Holzfäller’s role in all this? Tiktoffen had said he’d seemed... possessive of Lady Heterodyne. So how had she ended up marrying the baron’s son? What was Tarvek missing here?
Artacz cleared his throat from the doorway. “Please forgive the intrusion, Your Highness. The baron’s man is here.”
Tarvek took a deep breath and let it out again. “Thank you, Artacz.” He stood, stretched his back, and went to the window-and looked up as looming shadows heralded trouble. “Oh, no,” he breathed and whirled back to Artacz. “I thought you said the baron’s man was here!”
Artacz gulped. “He... he is, Your Highness.”
Then the quarantine ships must have arrived in the time it had taken Artacz to reach the study. “Right,” Tarvek said, pulling on his coat. “Lead me to him.”
Artacz quickly led the way to the main reception hall and then left as Tarvek entered. The young man waiting there was dressed in a well-made suit under a long black greatcoat trimmed with blue, similar in style to the coats the baron always wore, and he had a swagger stick topped with a long glass bulb resting on his shoulder... but that mop of brown hair was unmistakable, and when he turned, there was the too-familiar face that went with it.
“Sturmvoraus,” he said.
“Gilgamesh Holzfäller,” Tarvek snarled.
“That’s Lord Heterodyne to you,” Holzfäller shot back, lowering the swagger stick as if it were a rifle. “And I am interrupting my honeymoon to deal with this mess, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t waste my time.”
Tarvek opened his mouth to retort, but then he caught sight of the Heterodyne sigil at Holzfäller’s neck and groaned as the pieces came together. “Of course. That’s what you’ve been hiding all this time. You’re the baron’s son!”
Holz-Wulf-Heterodyne smirked. “And if you had designs on Agatha, forget it. She chose me.”
Tarvek’s lip curled. “I can’t say I think much of her taste, unless she doesn’t know what you got up to in Paris.”
“I had my reasons for Paris. But nothing like that happened between Agatha and me. She saved my life.” Heterodyne’s eyes flashed dangerously. “And I want to know what your father wanted with her.”
“My father’s plans no longer matter. They died with him. I never had any intention of going along with them.”
“Does it have anything to do with the fact that Anevka retuned her voice to match that of Lucrezia Mongfish?”
Tarvek blinked. “How did you-oh. The circus.”
“Yes, they were most helpful. Overheard a lot more than you thought they did, too-enough to know there are Geisterdamen in this city.”
Tarvek sighed heavily. There was no point in hiding it now. “Not anymore. I sent them away after my father’s death.”
“Where to?”
“Just away. They probably went to one of my father’s friends; a number of his friends were working with him and with the Geisters on a project I wanted nothing to do with.”
“A project involving Lucrezia’s voice.”
“But I couldn’t tell the Geisters I wouldn’t continue my father’s work. Lady Vrin, the high priestess, already didn’t like me. If she thought I was against them, she’d have killed me. So I... I lied, said I’d send word to one of the others if I finished my father’s assignment. And then after they were gone, I... destroyed the equipment.”
“Destroyed in what sense?”
“Completely.”
“Could you reassemble it?”
Tarvek shook his head. “No. Not even Lucrezia herself could.” He took a deep breath. “I dissolved it in acid.”
Heterodyne gave a low whistle. “Thorough. Pretty extreme, just to hide it from us.”
“That’s not why I did it!” Tarvek snapped. “That blasted machine killed my sister! And if Father had caught your Agatha, he’d have used it on her, too!”
Heterodyne frowned. “To kill her?”
“No, to-” Well, Tarvek had spilled this much; he might as well come clean about the rest. “The plan was for Lucrezia’s mind to possess her daughter’s body. But no one could find your wife, so Father tried using the chair on other female sparks. Including Anevka. It killed them all. The only reason Anevka lingered as long as she did was that Father recalled me from Paris, and I was able to build her a new body.”
Heterodyne raised his chin and put his swagger stick back on his shoulder. “How long has Anevka actually been dead?”
Tarvek sighed and started pacing. “I don’t know. The clank didn’t even notice. But lately she-it-had been... cruel, ruthless, even by our standards. We’d been making plans... you see, Father’s obsession with finding Agatha and his depression over his continued failure had gotten markedly worse, and Sturmhalten was suffering for it. Anevka and I had been planning a way to stop him once and for all. But then Anevka decided she needed to be able to control the Geisters so they wouldn’t oppose us, and she wanted me to retune her voice using the voice identification equipment in the theater.”
“That explains the request for The Socket Wench of Prague,” Heterodyne murmured.
“I didn’t like the idea, and I said so. She still needed me for maintenance, so she had no real way to threaten me effectively. So instead... she grabbed that poor fellow from the circus and made him do it. And she would have vivisected him if I hadn’t intervened.”
Heterodyne hummed thoughtfully. “Post-vital personality drift.”
Tarvek blinked and stopped pacing. “Pardon?”
“Saw it a couple of times in Paris. You remember the Hurwood brothers?”
“Vaguely. Something about rabbits?”
“Heh, yeah, but that’s not why the Master had me shut them down. Their big scheme was selling life extensions-clanks with a blank data core onto which the client’s personality could be copied. Mme. Desmana got one of the early models as a debt settlement so she won’t have to bequeath the shop to anyone when she finally goes.”
“Huh.”
“The process worked perfectly. The problem was that after a while, the clank started going bad-first despising humans, then attacking them. So I shut down the business, and Ardsley Wooster and I took out most of the clanks. I left Mme. Desmana’s because Colette promised to keep an eye on her when the time comes. Sounds like something similar happened with Anevka.”
Tarvek nodded. “That would explain a lot, yes.” The thought that Paris would be an even better power base than Mechanicsburg for establishing his claim to the Lightning Throne briefly crossed his mind, but he’d have to figure out how to get there later. “I’ve only shut her-it down, if your father needs to examine it.”
“He might. He might want to question it about how it killed your father.”
There was a knock on the doorframe, and both men turned to see someone wearing a gas mask, goggles, a cape... and a warrior wasp carapace as a cap. This individual also had something fuzzy and orange in his hand. “Beg to report, Lord Heterodyne,” he said. “It’s worse than we thought.”
Heterodyne frowned. “How many?”
“The whole town’s been wasped.”
“WHAT?!”
“The classic revenant is an unfortunate statistical extreme,” Tarvek admitted quietly.
Heterodyne rounded on him. “YOU KNEW?!”
“The state of this town is not my fault!” Tarvek returned. “Father and his friends did all that! And after what Anevka did to Father, I’ve been trying to come up with a way to stop it!”
There was an electrical hum as the end of Heterodyne’s swagger stick lit up, and he pointed it at Tarvek. “What did she do to him?”
Tarvek raised his hands but didn’t otherwise move. “A spark named Gottmurg Snarlantz had developed a new strain of wasp, capable of infecting sparks. Father’s friends recovered the prototype and his notes after Passholdt fell.”
“And you didn’t report anything about Passholdt.”
“I did! It was in the third paragraph of my letter to your father!”
Heterodyne lowered the swagger stick, and its light went out. “If that’s so, you should have put that information before the part about Agatha and me. My father never read any further. That was his first clue that I’d left Castle Wulfenbach.”
“Well, excuse me for not knowing that. I’m not a clairvoyant.”
“You didn’t report the new wasp, though.”
Tarvek dropped his hands. “No, because it was dead and I burned the notes. There was no point.”
“Why not?”
“It hadn’t been tested. I have no idea how Anevka learned of it; Father had tried to hide it from me, but he didn’t know I already had the combination to his secret safe. But somehow she got hold of it-and used it on Father. And then, with her retuned voice, she ordered him to shoot himself. So he did.”
Heterodyne turned to the individual in the doorway. “Does this square with what you know of the wasps?”
“It does, milord,” came the reply. “The wasp overrides even the most basic instincts toward self-preservation.”
“I’d known that in theory,” Tarvek confessed. “I’d never believed it could cause the revenant to commit suicide. I... hadn’t wanted to believe it could be used for harm.”
Heterodyne’s lip curled. “Because mind control is always for the victim’s best.”
“Well, I know better now! And I’m telling you about it now!”
“You burned the notes, you said, but are you sure no one else has a copy?”
“I-” Tarvek paused and sighed. “No. I’m not. Lord Selnikov brought them in, but the Jotun brothers had gone with him. They might have made a copy.”
Heterodyne sighed in turn. “I’m going to have to take you in, you know.”
“All right. I’ll come quietly.” That was certainly a better option than trying to fight his way out, especially since Gil-Heterodyne seemed to have some sort of electric rifle built into his swagger stick. Tarvek might even be able to find a way to undermine the empire from within once he was in the baron’s custody.
Heterodyne turned back to the door. “Sweep the palace. Bring in anything you find that looks suspicious. Look especially for two humanoid clanks-”
“Hi-Hi-Highness?” Tinka interrupted, coming in from another direction. “You-you-you-you are in trouble?”
“Sweet lightning,” Heterodyne breathed. “Master Payne was right.”
Tarvek blew the air out of his cheeks. “Yes, I am in trouble, Tinka, but nothing for you to worry about.”
But Tinka was already walking unsteadily toward Heterodyne. “You-you have seen Ma-Ma-Master Payne?”
Heterodyne nodded. “Indeed I have, Madame Tinka. I’m Lady Heterodyne’s consort.”
“Oh! She-she is not like Euphrosyn-syn-synia, then.”
“No, not at all.” Heterodyne turned back to his underling. “Make that one humanoid clank, then, similar to this one.”
“Yes, milord,” the underling replied and left.
Tarvek cleared his throat. “Tinka, I have to go with Lord Heterodyne for a while.”
“Oh,” Tinka replied. “Then I-I-I will come with you.”
“Er, well....”
“Actually, it might be a good idea,” Heterodyne interrupted. “I don’t know what Father will want to do with you, but we may need Tinka’s help. You remember Von Pinn?”
“How could I forget Von Pinn?”
“Turns out, Lucrezia transferred her mind into the construct body. She was originally Otilia.”
Tinka gasped. “My si-sister! How-where-how-”
“No idea, but now that we’ve found the clank, we’re planning to restore her.”
Tarvek blinked. “‘We’ meaning....”
“Agatha and I.”
Tarvek’s eyes widened. “No. Don’t let Agatha anywhere near Otilia.”
Heterodyne frowned. “Why not? It’s her clank, her castle. Just because you can’t fix Tinka-”
“For Ohm’s sake, listen to me! When you transfer Otilia out of Von Pinn, you’ll remove any restrictions Lucrezia might have placed on her regarding Agatha as Lucrezia’s child. So she’ll fall back on the orders she received about the Heterodyne girl. From what Tinka tells me, Valois ordered Otilia to guard the Heterodyne girl; Van Rijn’s order was to keep her safe for others to be around. And when Euphrosynia disappeared, Otilia disappeared with her. Valois’ diary says he suspected Otilia might have tried to take revenge on Euphrosynia for her treachery.”
“Agatha’s not Euphrosynia.”
“But the orders didn’t say ‘Euphrosynia.’ They both said ‘the Heterodyne girl.’ Plus, Von Pinn hates Lucrezia, so can you imagine what she’d do to Lucrezia’s daughter?”
“What do you care? You don’t even know Agatha.”
“I care about Von Pinn! She’s the only caretaker who ever showed me any kindness! I don’t want her placed in a situation where she might be killed in self-defense.”
“So what do you think you can do about it?”
Tarvek swallowed hard. “I can... once she’s restored, I can countermand both orders.”
Heterodyne raised an eyebrow. “Oh? On what authority?”
“I’m the Storm King.” When Heterodyne raised his other eyebrow, Tarvek clarified, “A direct descendant on my mother’s side. Tinka’s already accepted my claim.”
Tinka dropped a wobbly curtsey. “I-I-I will speak to my si-sister, help her un-understand.”
Heterodyne sighed. “You’ll have to make your case to my father. But I’ll pass the warning on to Agatha.”
Tarvek grimaced. “I suppose that’s the most I can ask of you, since you’re clearly not willing to trust me.”
“Not like I have much reason to trust you these days. Let’s go.”
Tarvek nodded and started to follow Heterodyne to the door, as did Tinka. But then he caught movement out the corner of his eye and gasped. “Gil, look out!”
The warning wasn’t entirely needed. Tarvek hadn’t even gotten the whole sentence out when Gil-Heterodyne! spun and fired his swagger stick at the Smoke Knight who was leaping at him. A jolt of bright blue lightning sprang from the bulb, and the Smoke Knight fried in mid-air.
Tarvek’s ears were still ringing when Heterodyne sighed in relief. “And not even Tinka was harmed. Excellent. I’d been worried about effect spread; I hadn’t exactly had time to notice in Castle Heterodyne.”
Tarvek suddenly choked on the smell of ozone and charred flesh and coughed, but that was enough to break him out of his shock. He drew himself up to his full height and raised his voice. “Smoke Knights! I am surrendering unconditionally. You are not to harm or interfere with Lord Heterodyne or his men-on pain of death.”
“DOWN!” Heterodyne ordered, and Tarvek dropped just as a blow dart whistled over his head and glanced off Tinka, who gasped. The Smoke Knight who’d fired it met his end as swiftly as did his fellow.
“FOOLS!” Tarvek roared as he stood up again. “I gave you a direct order. STAND DOWN!” Then he turned to Tinka. “Are you all right?”
“I-I was not further da-damaged, Hi-Highness,” Tinka replied. “And you?”
“Oh, peachy. Let’s get out of here before any more of these idiots decide to commit suicide.”
“There’s been far too much of that lately,” Heterodyne said darkly. “Come on.”
Tarvek pulled Tinka’s arm across his shoulders and took most of her weight so that she could keep up, and Heterodyne hurried them outside to his waiting airship. “That little toy what you used to kill Dr. Beetle?” Tarvek asked, nodding at the swagger stick, as they went.
Heterodyne snorted. “No. He threw a bomb at me. I managed to hit it back to him before it went off. This I threw together before we went into Castle Heterodyne-I’d made a prototype a few weeks ago, but since I was injured, I had to leave Castle Wulfenbach without it.”
“Injured?”
“Lab accident. I’m fine now.”
Tarvek’s eyes went wide, but he let the matter rest until they were safely on board and he could ease Tinka into a seat before grabbing Gil by the lapels, startling him. “I know you, remember? You may be a degenerate libertine, but you don’t have lab accidents. You tried to kill yourself, didn’t you?”
“Not as such,” Gil snarled, slapping Tarvek’s hands away. “I thought Agatha was dead, and I was conducting some stupidly dangerous experiments as a result. One got the better of me. I did want to die, yes, but I wasn’t in any shape to do anything about it. And then Agatha came back.”
Tarvek blinked rapidly, processing all that. “Why did you think-”
“Because my father scared her away. Somehow she fell in with Master Payne’s circus just before it was attacked by a spider clank. One of the other women was killed, so they doctored the body to make Dupree and me think it was Agatha.”
“Du-Bangladesh Dupree?!”
Gil nodded. “She works for my father. There was never anything between us.”
Tarvek reeled slightly as the airship lifted off. “You... you were trying to make me think ill of you. All that time in Paris. Those nightclub tarts and pirate doxies-you never did anything with them, either, did you?”
Gil looked mulish and didn’t answer, which was confirmation enough.
“And... that time we got caught in the records vault... that’s when the baron told you that you were his son. And he warned you about me-about my family.”
“It’s all true, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but... it was just supposed to be fun! How was I to know how it would look to the baron?”
Gil huffed and looked away.
“Hang it all, Gil, we used to be friends!” Tarvek blurted out desperately before he could stop himself.
“I know. That’s why you’re still alive.” And with that, Gil stalked out of the cabin, leaving Tarvek feeling strangely hollowed out.
Master Gil had given Ardsley a few extra days off before resuming his valet duties, which had given him time to nip off to report to his superiors (who were very glad not to have to introduce a new agent into the situation) and still left him plenty of leisure to explore Mechanicsburg more thoroughly than he’d been able to manage while working with Higgs and Gen. Gkika to keep Gil alive and then with Vanamonde von Mekkhan to prepare Mechanicsburg for Miss Agatha’s accession. He’d spent much of the morning already wandering through the marketplace, and now he felt like taking a closer look at the cathedral.
The place had an unusual layout, which Ardsley supposed was to be expected given that the area had remained stubbornly pagan until Bill Heterodyne’s accession. The nave didn’t run the full length of the building; the altar was closer to the crossing than usual by about a third, and behind it stood a passage leading to other rooms that were presumably not chapels. Ardsley had just about made up his mind to follow that passage to see what he could see when a tall, dark-haired fellow staggered out of it, looking decidedly green. He caught sight of Ardsley and stumbled toward him, giving Ardsley a chance to recognize him as the actor who’d played Bill Heterodyne the night before. This must be the Lars of whom Miss Agatha had spoken.
“Englander,” Lars said urgently. “You... you work for Lord Heterodyne, yes?” The words were somewhat slurred, and as he closed the distance, Ardsley could smell alcohol on his breath. Either still drunk or hung over, or quite possibly both.
“Indeed I do,” Ardsley replied cautiously.
Lars grabbed him by the shoulder and started pulling him back toward the passage. “C’mere. Gotta see this. Gotta warn Agatha.”
“Warn her of what?”
“Foun’ somethin’. ’S dangerous. She needs to know.”
“What did you find?”
“Iunno. ’M not a spark. Jus’... jus’ play one. C’mon.”
“I’m not a spark either, sir.”
“Yeah, but you... you... look pretty smart. ’N you work for Lord-hic!-Lord Heterodyne.”
“Look here, are you quite all right?”
“No’really. I was... lookin’ for the c’nfeshnal. I went... went to Mamma Gkika’s las’ night with the Jägers. Was a baaad idea.”
Drunk and hung over, then. Poor fellow. “I see,” was all Ardsley said.
“I got kinda lost,” Lars continued but was interrupted by another hiccup and a belch. He was swaying dangerously, but his grip on Ardsley’s shoulder was firm, and he was intent on reaching his destination. “Bu’ then I... I saw this glow. Up there, see?”
Ardsley did see. One of the doors up ahead was open, and a greenish glow was spilling from it into the hall. “Right,” he said, putting an arm around Lars’ waist to help steady him, and picked up the pace.
“Halt,” rasped one of the Crypt Keeper mummies further down the hall, past the open door. “You cannot enter.”
“Lady Heterodyne’s life may be in danger if we don’t,” Ardsley growled. “Stand aside!”
That Keeper stopped short in alarm, and another that was inside the doorway stood aside to let Lars and Ardsley pass.
“There,” Lars breathed as they found the source of the glow and released each other. “What’d I tell ya?”
Ardsley nodded slowly. He wasn’t the world’s best judge of spark work-that would be the baron’s purview-but given the shape of the structure and the controls surrounding it, he suspected it was probably some kind of portal. The opening itself was dark, but the system was quite clearly active. “You,” he said, turning to the nearer Keeper. “Why is this portal active?”
“I don’t know,” wheezed the Keeper. “I wass looking for the abbesss.”
“It is a portal, is it not?”
“Yess.”
“Where does it lead?”
“No idea. Don’t think it goess only one place, though-too many dialss.”
“Right. Lars, you’d best stay here on guard, I think, though I’ll send someone to relieve you as quick as I can. I’m going to warn Miss Agatha.”
Lars hiccupped but nodded grimly.
With that, Ardsley ran out, memorizing the route so he could give directions. He grabbed the first five Jägers he passed and sent them ahead, three to relieve Lars, one to see Lars back to the circus, and one to alert the baron. But by then, the castle had overheard enough. It activated two of the nearest Torchmen, who grabbed a pole between them and hovered in front of Ardsley.
“Grab hold, Mr. Wooster,” the castle ordered. “I’ll take you to the mistress at once.”
Swallowing his fears, Ardsley grabbed hold of the pole and refused to look down as the Torchmen shot skyward. But just about the time he felt the heat from their fire was becoming unbearable, they lowered him gently onto a balcony of the castle before returning to their stations. He had to steady himself against the railing as he recovered, but at least he was upright.
“Ah, very well done, sir,” the castle said approvingly. “You’ll do.”
“Thanks for the lift,” he gasped, not daring to ask, Do for what?!
The balcony door opened, and Miss Agatha ran out, death ray in hand. “Mr. Wooster! The castle said you had urgent news. What’s happening?”
Ardsley took a deep breath and let it out again. “Lars has just discovered a portal in the cathedral, milady. Recently used, from the looks of it. If I had to guess, I’d say the abbess has gone somewhere-but I’ve no idea where.”
“A portal.” Miss Agatha frowned. “Not unidirectional?”
“I shouldn’t lay odds on it, milady.”
“Right. Who have you told?” When Ardsley informed her, she nodded. “Good. We’d better get down there. Maybe we can shut it down before Gil gets back.”
Jägers and Wulfenbach troops were standing by in the cathedral square when Ardsley and Miss Agatha returned, and Princess Zeetha and Higgs met them on the steps and fell in beside them. “Lars told us,” Princess Zeetha said before Miss Agatha could ask what they were doing there. “Father’s already inside.”
“Where’s Krosp?” Miss Agatha asked.
Higgs snorted. “Off with a tabby, last I saw, milady.”
Miss Agatha shook her head. “He would. Lead on, Mr. Wooster.”
“I’m really curious about this thing,” said Princess Zeetha as Ardsley pulled ahead of the group slightly. “Yes, it’s a weak point that needs to be addressed, but it could also have its uses.”
“So you think we should seal it rather than destroy it?”
“Possibly. Let’s look at it first.”
The baron was talking with a Keeper when the four of them burst into the portal room. “Ah, Wooster, well done,” he said. “Zeetha? What do you make of this thing?”
Princess Zeetha hummed as she looked over the equipment. “Reminds me of Queen Luheia’s Mirror.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“It’s said the mirror was the magic gate that brought our ancestresses to Skifander,” Princess Zeetha explained to Ardsley and Miss Agatha. “Maybe-when the time comes-I can use this to get home again.”
“The controls do appear to be adjustable,” the baron added. “But unless you were planning to leave in the short term....”
Princess Zeetha raised an eyebrow. “Agatha’s still a novice. I can’t leave.”
“Then we need to devise a way to ensure that the portal can’t be used as a point of infiltration.”
“Some sort of shield, perhaps?” Miss Agatha ventured. “A strong metal, say, that could withstand impacts, placed close enough to the event horizon that nothing coming through can get around it....”
“Rather hard luck on the arriving party if it’s a friend,” Ardsley noted.
“Yes, but if that were happening regularly, the device wouldn’t be hidden away like this, would it? It’d be out in one of the squares, where the tourists are.”
“We have not sseen thiss portal ussed, Misstresss,” said the Keeper. “One of uss iss normally sstationed here-unlesss the abbesss ssendss uss away.”
Miss Agatha frowned. “And where is the abbess now?”
“No one seems to know,” replied the baron. “A squad of Jägers is searching the building now.”
“I don’t like this. There’s no good reason for her to be using this portal. She shouldn’t be leaving town except on church business anyway, and unless it were an emergency, nothing would prevent her from leaving by regular means of transportation.”
Ardsley had to stifle a proud smile. The abbess wasn’t one of the people on whom he’d been briefed, but he’d come to the same conclusion about her himself. Miss Agatha’s powers of deduction weren’t as weak as he’d feared, and neither was her ability to judge character.
“The real question,” she continued, regarding the portal through narrowed eyes, “is what bad reason she has for using it. If she’s smart, she won’t keep any incriminating papers that would give us any clues.”
Oh, well done indeed, milady, Ardsley thought warmly, still holding back a smile. I shall have to take the same care myself, but as I am fond of you and Master Gil, I shan’t mind the inconvenience.
For his part, the baron had begun smiling-a small smile, of the sort he got when testing Master Gil, but a pleased one nonetheless. “Go on.”
Agatha went on, “She could have left last night; there was enough commotion outside with all the festivities that no one would have noticed. Of course, for all we know, she did-but I would have thought she’d take care to be back by now, so her absence wouldn’t be noticed.”
“Well spotted. And judging from the settings and the fact that the system’s still warm, it’s been used within the last few hours.”
“Since Gil left for Sturmhalten?”
The baron’s smile grew. “More than likely.”
“So she’s probably gone to someone who was working with Prince Aaronev, which means we definitely need to seal the portal somehow, and the sooner, the better.”
The baron raised an eyebrow. “Before she returns?”
“I don’t want anyone in my city who’d be a party to... to that!”
“Oh, no, of course. But she would be more valuable alive, as a prisoner to interrogate, than dead.”
Miss Agatha blinked. “Oh. Yes. There is that.”
Princess Zeetha squeezed her shoulder. “You’re not wrong, zumil. We do need to seal the door quickly. Just not until after-”
The discussion quickly became moot, however, as the portal began to activate. The baron jumped out of the way and called for guards, and every armed person present readied his or her weapon. So when the abbess jumped through and the portal shut down behind her, she found herself very thoroughly surrounded.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.
“I could ask the same of you, Reverend Mother,” Agatha returned.
“Pah! You think I intend to answer to some chit of a girl foisted off on my city by this two-bit usurper?”
“Wrong pronoun,” Agatha snarled, charging her death ray. “This city is mine.”
The abbess snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself, child. You may have fooled a broken castle and a desperate people, but you are no true Heterodyne.” She drew her sword-and Princess Zeetha hacked it in half before Ardsley could even blink.
“HOLD!” interrupted two male voices, one of them Master Gil’s. The other took Ardsley a moment longer to place, as he hadn’t heard it since Paris.
“If you harm Lady Heterodyne,” Prince Tarvek went on, “I will have you flayed.”
“Now, hold on,” said Master Gil, trying not to sound amused but failing, to Ardsley’s ear. “My wife, my cathedral, and my problem. You’re still a prisoner, remember?”
“All right, then, he’ll have you flayed.”
“That’s more like it.”
“You, too, think too highly of yourself, princeling,” spat the abbess. “If you think you’re irreplaceable, you’re mistaken.”
“Oh, I know what the family thinks of me,” Prince Tarvek jabbed as Master Gil escorted him further into the room. “But your only function is to command the Bloodstone Paladins, which haven’t been used in two hundred years. You’re neither a spark nor a mechanic. You can’t get them running on your own. And with the castle repaired, they’re not needed for defense. I may be replaceable, but you?” His lip curled. “You’re expendable.”
In Ardsley’s peripheral vision, Miss Agatha turned a switch on her death ray.
“Your grandfather knew you were too soft,” the abbess snarled. “But mark my words, the Storm King will return, and you and these impostors will-”
BZZAP!
As the abbess crumpled to the floor, all eyes turned incredulously to Miss Agatha.
“I set it to Stun,” Miss Agatha promised and pointed to the switch to prove that it was indeed on its lowest setting.
Master Gil knelt to check the abbess’ pulse. “Yeah, she’s alive. Jägers, get her out of here. Where do you want her, Father?” he asked as he stood up again and got out of the way of the Jägers.
“Send her to Castle Wulfenbach,” replied the baron. “She’ll be less likely to escape from there, and I do wish to question her further.”
The Jägers looked at Miss Agatha, who nodded, and nodded back. “Hokay, Herr Baron,” said one of them, and they hurried out with their burden.
Prince Tarvek, meanwhile, was examining the portal controls. “These are the coordinates for the Refuge of Storms,” he reported. “So she’s been working with my cousin Martellus von Blitzengaard. That’s good news and bad news. The good news is that he’s too much of a blowhard to come in this way. Whatever attack he orchestrates, he’ll be planning to come in through the front gate. The bad news is that he may not accept Agatha’s claim or her marriage as legitimate. His faction of the Knights of Jove has always opposed Lucrezia, but that doesn’t mean he won’t kidnap Agatha for his own purposes. And if he gets close enough to try it, he’ll more than likely plan to go out this way.”
Miss Agatha looked at Ardsley in bewilderment.
“This is Prince Tarvek, milady,” Ardsley explained.
Prince Tarvek turned, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Oh. Forgive me, Lady Heterodyne.” He bowed, and Ardsley couldn’t help noticing that he stayed where he was, a respectful distance from Miss Agatha.
The baron looked at him narrowly. “You’re being unusually cooperative, Tarvek.”
Prince Tarvek huffed and squared his shoulders. “Yes, well, I see no reason not to be under the circumstances. I did declare my intent to remain your loyal vassal, after all, and I do wish to clear myself of any suspicion of complicity in my father’s crimes, such as the murder of numerous female sparks, including my sister, in an attempt to create a neural clone of Lucrezia Mongfish.”
Miss Agatha drew a slow, deep breath, then nodded once and turned to Master Gil. “I’m glad you’re back, Gil,” she said briskly with undertones of Spark. “I’ve got an idea for how we can block the portal to prevent anyone from getting in, but if there’s a risk of someone kidnapping me....”
“We need a lock that you can’t open alone,” Master Gil agreed, his own Spark kindling. “Let’s go find some paper.”
She crossed to him and took his arm. “A voice print is right out.”
“Oh, definitely.” He fell into step beside her. “Blood is too slow.”
“And messy, painful, and fallible, if they manage to steal a sample of your blood.”
“Ha, true. What does that leave?”
“What does that leave? Hm. Fingerprint, retinal scan... hm... hmmm....” The sound of her heterodyning faded away as they disappeared down the hall.
Prince Tarvek sighed wistfully after them.
“Touch her and die,” Princess Zeetha growled.
Prince Tarvek cast her a baleful look. “And who, pray tell, are you?”
“Zeetha, Daughter of Chump.”
The baron rolled his eyes.
“One of Gil’s doxies?” Prince Tarvek sneered.
“Nope.” Princess Zeetha leaned against Higgs’ shoulder as if it were a mantelpiece and grinned. “I’m his sister.”
Prince Tarvek went beetroot, and Ardsley excused himself quickly and got as far out of earshot as he could before laughing.
Next
Chapter 4
It’s Always the Crazy Times
Monday morning found Tarvek at his desk, sighing heavily as he read Violetta’s dispatch for the third time:
Lady Heterodyne’s really nice. I haven’t had much chance to talk to her, but I was close to her when the Doom Bell rang the second time, and she actually complimented me on my ability not to pass out. (Well, someone had to keep Bürgermeister Zuken from cracking his head open, not that it wouldn’t have been an improvement!) But the bad news is that she married the baron’s son the moment Dr. Yglyn finished the accession ceremony. And he’s always with her, and it seems like she’s always guarded either by Jägers or by this crazy swordswoman she met at a circus, and the baron’s in town, so I can’t just poison him, even if you ordered me to.
That’s it, then, Tarvek thought yet again, putting the letter down. He’d known the Order’s plan to install a fake Heterodyne heir was done for as soon as he’d heard from Tiktoffen that the real one was in Castle Heterodyne. But he’d thought he’d have time to go through with the other half of the plan, saving her heroically from an attack on the city, courting her, and eventually marrying her. Now... no, he couldn’t risk assassinating the baron’s son. Even if it worked, either the baron would find out and come down on him like a ton of bricks, or Lady Heterodyne would find out and refuse to marry him. Or both.
How had the baron managed to outflank them this way? Had he gotten hold of the Order’s plans? If so, how much did he know?
And what in the name of Newton was Gil Holzfäller’s role in all this? Tiktoffen had said he’d seemed... possessive of Lady Heterodyne. So how had she ended up marrying the baron’s son? What was Tarvek missing here?
Artacz cleared his throat from the doorway. “Please forgive the intrusion, Your Highness. The baron’s man is here.”
Tarvek took a deep breath and let it out again. “Thank you, Artacz.” He stood, stretched his back, and went to the window-and looked up as looming shadows heralded trouble. “Oh, no,” he breathed and whirled back to Artacz. “I thought you said the baron’s man was here!”
Artacz gulped. “He... he is, Your Highness.”
Then the quarantine ships must have arrived in the time it had taken Artacz to reach the study. “Right,” Tarvek said, pulling on his coat. “Lead me to him.”
Artacz quickly led the way to the main reception hall and then left as Tarvek entered. The young man waiting there was dressed in a well-made suit under a long black greatcoat trimmed with blue, similar in style to the coats the baron always wore, and he had a swagger stick topped with a long glass bulb resting on his shoulder... but that mop of brown hair was unmistakable, and when he turned, there was the too-familiar face that went with it.
“Sturmvoraus,” he said.
“Gilgamesh Holzfäller,” Tarvek snarled.
“That’s Lord Heterodyne to you,” Holzfäller shot back, lowering the swagger stick as if it were a rifle. “And I am interrupting my honeymoon to deal with this mess, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t waste my time.”
Tarvek opened his mouth to retort, but then he caught sight of the Heterodyne sigil at Holzfäller’s neck and groaned as the pieces came together. “Of course. That’s what you’ve been hiding all this time. You’re the baron’s son!”
Holz-Wulf-Heterodyne smirked. “And if you had designs on Agatha, forget it. She chose me.”
Tarvek’s lip curled. “I can’t say I think much of her taste, unless she doesn’t know what you got up to in Paris.”
“I had my reasons for Paris. But nothing like that happened between Agatha and me. She saved my life.” Heterodyne’s eyes flashed dangerously. “And I want to know what your father wanted with her.”
“My father’s plans no longer matter. They died with him. I never had any intention of going along with them.”
“Does it have anything to do with the fact that Anevka retuned her voice to match that of Lucrezia Mongfish?”
Tarvek blinked. “How did you-oh. The circus.”
“Yes, they were most helpful. Overheard a lot more than you thought they did, too-enough to know there are Geisterdamen in this city.”
Tarvek sighed heavily. There was no point in hiding it now. “Not anymore. I sent them away after my father’s death.”
“Where to?”
“Just away. They probably went to one of my father’s friends; a number of his friends were working with him and with the Geisters on a project I wanted nothing to do with.”
“A project involving Lucrezia’s voice.”
“But I couldn’t tell the Geisters I wouldn’t continue my father’s work. Lady Vrin, the high priestess, already didn’t like me. If she thought I was against them, she’d have killed me. So I... I lied, said I’d send word to one of the others if I finished my father’s assignment. And then after they were gone, I... destroyed the equipment.”
“Destroyed in what sense?”
“Completely.”
“Could you reassemble it?”
Tarvek shook his head. “No. Not even Lucrezia herself could.” He took a deep breath. “I dissolved it in acid.”
Heterodyne gave a low whistle. “Thorough. Pretty extreme, just to hide it from us.”
“That’s not why I did it!” Tarvek snapped. “That blasted machine killed my sister! And if Father had caught your Agatha, he’d have used it on her, too!”
Heterodyne frowned. “To kill her?”
“No, to-” Well, Tarvek had spilled this much; he might as well come clean about the rest. “The plan was for Lucrezia’s mind to possess her daughter’s body. But no one could find your wife, so Father tried using the chair on other female sparks. Including Anevka. It killed them all. The only reason Anevka lingered as long as she did was that Father recalled me from Paris, and I was able to build her a new body.”
Heterodyne raised his chin and put his swagger stick back on his shoulder. “How long has Anevka actually been dead?”
Tarvek sighed and started pacing. “I don’t know. The clank didn’t even notice. But lately she-it-had been... cruel, ruthless, even by our standards. We’d been making plans... you see, Father’s obsession with finding Agatha and his depression over his continued failure had gotten markedly worse, and Sturmhalten was suffering for it. Anevka and I had been planning a way to stop him once and for all. But then Anevka decided she needed to be able to control the Geisters so they wouldn’t oppose us, and she wanted me to retune her voice using the voice identification equipment in the theater.”
“That explains the request for The Socket Wench of Prague,” Heterodyne murmured.
“I didn’t like the idea, and I said so. She still needed me for maintenance, so she had no real way to threaten me effectively. So instead... she grabbed that poor fellow from the circus and made him do it. And she would have vivisected him if I hadn’t intervened.”
Heterodyne hummed thoughtfully. “Post-vital personality drift.”
Tarvek blinked and stopped pacing. “Pardon?”
“Saw it a couple of times in Paris. You remember the Hurwood brothers?”
“Vaguely. Something about rabbits?”
“Heh, yeah, but that’s not why the Master had me shut them down. Their big scheme was selling life extensions-clanks with a blank data core onto which the client’s personality could be copied. Mme. Desmana got one of the early models as a debt settlement so she won’t have to bequeath the shop to anyone when she finally goes.”
“Huh.”
“The process worked perfectly. The problem was that after a while, the clank started going bad-first despising humans, then attacking them. So I shut down the business, and Ardsley Wooster and I took out most of the clanks. I left Mme. Desmana’s because Colette promised to keep an eye on her when the time comes. Sounds like something similar happened with Anevka.”
Tarvek nodded. “That would explain a lot, yes.” The thought that Paris would be an even better power base than Mechanicsburg for establishing his claim to the Lightning Throne briefly crossed his mind, but he’d have to figure out how to get there later. “I’ve only shut her-it down, if your father needs to examine it.”
“He might. He might want to question it about how it killed your father.”
There was a knock on the doorframe, and both men turned to see someone wearing a gas mask, goggles, a cape... and a warrior wasp carapace as a cap. This individual also had something fuzzy and orange in his hand. “Beg to report, Lord Heterodyne,” he said. “It’s worse than we thought.”
Heterodyne frowned. “How many?”
“The whole town’s been wasped.”
“WHAT?!”
“The classic revenant is an unfortunate statistical extreme,” Tarvek admitted quietly.
Heterodyne rounded on him. “YOU KNEW?!”
“The state of this town is not my fault!” Tarvek returned. “Father and his friends did all that! And after what Anevka did to Father, I’ve been trying to come up with a way to stop it!”
There was an electrical hum as the end of Heterodyne’s swagger stick lit up, and he pointed it at Tarvek. “What did she do to him?”
Tarvek raised his hands but didn’t otherwise move. “A spark named Gottmurg Snarlantz had developed a new strain of wasp, capable of infecting sparks. Father’s friends recovered the prototype and his notes after Passholdt fell.”
“And you didn’t report anything about Passholdt.”
“I did! It was in the third paragraph of my letter to your father!”
Heterodyne lowered the swagger stick, and its light went out. “If that’s so, you should have put that information before the part about Agatha and me. My father never read any further. That was his first clue that I’d left Castle Wulfenbach.”
“Well, excuse me for not knowing that. I’m not a clairvoyant.”
“You didn’t report the new wasp, though.”
Tarvek dropped his hands. “No, because it was dead and I burned the notes. There was no point.”
“Why not?”
“It hadn’t been tested. I have no idea how Anevka learned of it; Father had tried to hide it from me, but he didn’t know I already had the combination to his secret safe. But somehow she got hold of it-and used it on Father. And then, with her retuned voice, she ordered him to shoot himself. So he did.”
Heterodyne turned to the individual in the doorway. “Does this square with what you know of the wasps?”
“It does, milord,” came the reply. “The wasp overrides even the most basic instincts toward self-preservation.”
“I’d known that in theory,” Tarvek confessed. “I’d never believed it could cause the revenant to commit suicide. I... hadn’t wanted to believe it could be used for harm.”
Heterodyne’s lip curled. “Because mind control is always for the victim’s best.”
“Well, I know better now! And I’m telling you about it now!”
“You burned the notes, you said, but are you sure no one else has a copy?”
“I-” Tarvek paused and sighed. “No. I’m not. Lord Selnikov brought them in, but the Jotun brothers had gone with him. They might have made a copy.”
Heterodyne sighed in turn. “I’m going to have to take you in, you know.”
“All right. I’ll come quietly.” That was certainly a better option than trying to fight his way out, especially since Gil-Heterodyne seemed to have some sort of electric rifle built into his swagger stick. Tarvek might even be able to find a way to undermine the empire from within once he was in the baron’s custody.
Heterodyne turned back to the door. “Sweep the palace. Bring in anything you find that looks suspicious. Look especially for two humanoid clanks-”
“Hi-Hi-Highness?” Tinka interrupted, coming in from another direction. “You-you-you-you are in trouble?”
“Sweet lightning,” Heterodyne breathed. “Master Payne was right.”
Tarvek blew the air out of his cheeks. “Yes, I am in trouble, Tinka, but nothing for you to worry about.”
But Tinka was already walking unsteadily toward Heterodyne. “You-you have seen Ma-Ma-Master Payne?”
Heterodyne nodded. “Indeed I have, Madame Tinka. I’m Lady Heterodyne’s consort.”
“Oh! She-she is not like Euphrosyn-syn-synia, then.”
“No, not at all.” Heterodyne turned back to his underling. “Make that one humanoid clank, then, similar to this one.”
“Yes, milord,” the underling replied and left.
Tarvek cleared his throat. “Tinka, I have to go with Lord Heterodyne for a while.”
“Oh,” Tinka replied. “Then I-I-I will come with you.”
“Er, well....”
“Actually, it might be a good idea,” Heterodyne interrupted. “I don’t know what Father will want to do with you, but we may need Tinka’s help. You remember Von Pinn?”
“How could I forget Von Pinn?”
“Turns out, Lucrezia transferred her mind into the construct body. She was originally Otilia.”
Tinka gasped. “My si-sister! How-where-how-”
“No idea, but now that we’ve found the clank, we’re planning to restore her.”
Tarvek blinked. “‘We’ meaning....”
“Agatha and I.”
Tarvek’s eyes widened. “No. Don’t let Agatha anywhere near Otilia.”
Heterodyne frowned. “Why not? It’s her clank, her castle. Just because you can’t fix Tinka-”
“For Ohm’s sake, listen to me! When you transfer Otilia out of Von Pinn, you’ll remove any restrictions Lucrezia might have placed on her regarding Agatha as Lucrezia’s child. So she’ll fall back on the orders she received about the Heterodyne girl. From what Tinka tells me, Valois ordered Otilia to guard the Heterodyne girl; Van Rijn’s order was to keep her safe for others to be around. And when Euphrosynia disappeared, Otilia disappeared with her. Valois’ diary says he suspected Otilia might have tried to take revenge on Euphrosynia for her treachery.”
“Agatha’s not Euphrosynia.”
“But the orders didn’t say ‘Euphrosynia.’ They both said ‘the Heterodyne girl.’ Plus, Von Pinn hates Lucrezia, so can you imagine what she’d do to Lucrezia’s daughter?”
“What do you care? You don’t even know Agatha.”
“I care about Von Pinn! She’s the only caretaker who ever showed me any kindness! I don’t want her placed in a situation where she might be killed in self-defense.”
“So what do you think you can do about it?”
Tarvek swallowed hard. “I can... once she’s restored, I can countermand both orders.”
Heterodyne raised an eyebrow. “Oh? On what authority?”
“I’m the Storm King.” When Heterodyne raised his other eyebrow, Tarvek clarified, “A direct descendant on my mother’s side. Tinka’s already accepted my claim.”
Tinka dropped a wobbly curtsey. “I-I-I will speak to my si-sister, help her un-understand.”
Heterodyne sighed. “You’ll have to make your case to my father. But I’ll pass the warning on to Agatha.”
Tarvek grimaced. “I suppose that’s the most I can ask of you, since you’re clearly not willing to trust me.”
“Not like I have much reason to trust you these days. Let’s go.”
Tarvek nodded and started to follow Heterodyne to the door, as did Tinka. But then he caught movement out the corner of his eye and gasped. “Gil, look out!”
The warning wasn’t entirely needed. Tarvek hadn’t even gotten the whole sentence out when Gil-Heterodyne! spun and fired his swagger stick at the Smoke Knight who was leaping at him. A jolt of bright blue lightning sprang from the bulb, and the Smoke Knight fried in mid-air.
Tarvek’s ears were still ringing when Heterodyne sighed in relief. “And not even Tinka was harmed. Excellent. I’d been worried about effect spread; I hadn’t exactly had time to notice in Castle Heterodyne.”
Tarvek suddenly choked on the smell of ozone and charred flesh and coughed, but that was enough to break him out of his shock. He drew himself up to his full height and raised his voice. “Smoke Knights! I am surrendering unconditionally. You are not to harm or interfere with Lord Heterodyne or his men-on pain of death.”
“DOWN!” Heterodyne ordered, and Tarvek dropped just as a blow dart whistled over his head and glanced off Tinka, who gasped. The Smoke Knight who’d fired it met his end as swiftly as did his fellow.
“FOOLS!” Tarvek roared as he stood up again. “I gave you a direct order. STAND DOWN!” Then he turned to Tinka. “Are you all right?”
“I-I was not further da-damaged, Hi-Highness,” Tinka replied. “And you?”
“Oh, peachy. Let’s get out of here before any more of these idiots decide to commit suicide.”
“There’s been far too much of that lately,” Heterodyne said darkly. “Come on.”
Tarvek pulled Tinka’s arm across his shoulders and took most of her weight so that she could keep up, and Heterodyne hurried them outside to his waiting airship. “That little toy what you used to kill Dr. Beetle?” Tarvek asked, nodding at the swagger stick, as they went.
Heterodyne snorted. “No. He threw a bomb at me. I managed to hit it back to him before it went off. This I threw together before we went into Castle Heterodyne-I’d made a prototype a few weeks ago, but since I was injured, I had to leave Castle Wulfenbach without it.”
“Injured?”
“Lab accident. I’m fine now.”
Tarvek’s eyes went wide, but he let the matter rest until they were safely on board and he could ease Tinka into a seat before grabbing Gil by the lapels, startling him. “I know you, remember? You may be a degenerate libertine, but you don’t have lab accidents. You tried to kill yourself, didn’t you?”
“Not as such,” Gil snarled, slapping Tarvek’s hands away. “I thought Agatha was dead, and I was conducting some stupidly dangerous experiments as a result. One got the better of me. I did want to die, yes, but I wasn’t in any shape to do anything about it. And then Agatha came back.”
Tarvek blinked rapidly, processing all that. “Why did you think-”
“Because my father scared her away. Somehow she fell in with Master Payne’s circus just before it was attacked by a spider clank. One of the other women was killed, so they doctored the body to make Dupree and me think it was Agatha.”
“Du-Bangladesh Dupree?!”
Gil nodded. “She works for my father. There was never anything between us.”
Tarvek reeled slightly as the airship lifted off. “You... you were trying to make me think ill of you. All that time in Paris. Those nightclub tarts and pirate doxies-you never did anything with them, either, did you?”
Gil looked mulish and didn’t answer, which was confirmation enough.
“And... that time we got caught in the records vault... that’s when the baron told you that you were his son. And he warned you about me-about my family.”
“It’s all true, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but... it was just supposed to be fun! How was I to know how it would look to the baron?”
Gil huffed and looked away.
“Hang it all, Gil, we used to be friends!” Tarvek blurted out desperately before he could stop himself.
“I know. That’s why you’re still alive.” And with that, Gil stalked out of the cabin, leaving Tarvek feeling strangely hollowed out.
Master Gil had given Ardsley a few extra days off before resuming his valet duties, which had given him time to nip off to report to his superiors (who were very glad not to have to introduce a new agent into the situation) and still left him plenty of leisure to explore Mechanicsburg more thoroughly than he’d been able to manage while working with Higgs and Gen. Gkika to keep Gil alive and then with Vanamonde von Mekkhan to prepare Mechanicsburg for Miss Agatha’s accession. He’d spent much of the morning already wandering through the marketplace, and now he felt like taking a closer look at the cathedral.
The place had an unusual layout, which Ardsley supposed was to be expected given that the area had remained stubbornly pagan until Bill Heterodyne’s accession. The nave didn’t run the full length of the building; the altar was closer to the crossing than usual by about a third, and behind it stood a passage leading to other rooms that were presumably not chapels. Ardsley had just about made up his mind to follow that passage to see what he could see when a tall, dark-haired fellow staggered out of it, looking decidedly green. He caught sight of Ardsley and stumbled toward him, giving Ardsley a chance to recognize him as the actor who’d played Bill Heterodyne the night before. This must be the Lars of whom Miss Agatha had spoken.
“Englander,” Lars said urgently. “You... you work for Lord Heterodyne, yes?” The words were somewhat slurred, and as he closed the distance, Ardsley could smell alcohol on his breath. Either still drunk or hung over, or quite possibly both.
“Indeed I do,” Ardsley replied cautiously.
Lars grabbed him by the shoulder and started pulling him back toward the passage. “C’mere. Gotta see this. Gotta warn Agatha.”
“Warn her of what?”
“Foun’ somethin’. ’S dangerous. She needs to know.”
“What did you find?”
“Iunno. ’M not a spark. Jus’... jus’ play one. C’mon.”
“I’m not a spark either, sir.”
“Yeah, but you... you... look pretty smart. ’N you work for Lord-hic!-Lord Heterodyne.”
“Look here, are you quite all right?”
“No’really. I was... lookin’ for the c’nfeshnal. I went... went to Mamma Gkika’s las’ night with the Jägers. Was a baaad idea.”
Drunk and hung over, then. Poor fellow. “I see,” was all Ardsley said.
“I got kinda lost,” Lars continued but was interrupted by another hiccup and a belch. He was swaying dangerously, but his grip on Ardsley’s shoulder was firm, and he was intent on reaching his destination. “Bu’ then I... I saw this glow. Up there, see?”
Ardsley did see. One of the doors up ahead was open, and a greenish glow was spilling from it into the hall. “Right,” he said, putting an arm around Lars’ waist to help steady him, and picked up the pace.
“Halt,” rasped one of the Crypt Keeper mummies further down the hall, past the open door. “You cannot enter.”
“Lady Heterodyne’s life may be in danger if we don’t,” Ardsley growled. “Stand aside!”
That Keeper stopped short in alarm, and another that was inside the doorway stood aside to let Lars and Ardsley pass.
“There,” Lars breathed as they found the source of the glow and released each other. “What’d I tell ya?”
Ardsley nodded slowly. He wasn’t the world’s best judge of spark work-that would be the baron’s purview-but given the shape of the structure and the controls surrounding it, he suspected it was probably some kind of portal. The opening itself was dark, but the system was quite clearly active. “You,” he said, turning to the nearer Keeper. “Why is this portal active?”
“I don’t know,” wheezed the Keeper. “I wass looking for the abbesss.”
“It is a portal, is it not?”
“Yess.”
“Where does it lead?”
“No idea. Don’t think it goess only one place, though-too many dialss.”
“Right. Lars, you’d best stay here on guard, I think, though I’ll send someone to relieve you as quick as I can. I’m going to warn Miss Agatha.”
Lars hiccupped but nodded grimly.
With that, Ardsley ran out, memorizing the route so he could give directions. He grabbed the first five Jägers he passed and sent them ahead, three to relieve Lars, one to see Lars back to the circus, and one to alert the baron. But by then, the castle had overheard enough. It activated two of the nearest Torchmen, who grabbed a pole between them and hovered in front of Ardsley.
“Grab hold, Mr. Wooster,” the castle ordered. “I’ll take you to the mistress at once.”
Swallowing his fears, Ardsley grabbed hold of the pole and refused to look down as the Torchmen shot skyward. But just about the time he felt the heat from their fire was becoming unbearable, they lowered him gently onto a balcony of the castle before returning to their stations. He had to steady himself against the railing as he recovered, but at least he was upright.
“Ah, very well done, sir,” the castle said approvingly. “You’ll do.”
“Thanks for the lift,” he gasped, not daring to ask, Do for what?!
The balcony door opened, and Miss Agatha ran out, death ray in hand. “Mr. Wooster! The castle said you had urgent news. What’s happening?”
Ardsley took a deep breath and let it out again. “Lars has just discovered a portal in the cathedral, milady. Recently used, from the looks of it. If I had to guess, I’d say the abbess has gone somewhere-but I’ve no idea where.”
“A portal.” Miss Agatha frowned. “Not unidirectional?”
“I shouldn’t lay odds on it, milady.”
“Right. Who have you told?” When Ardsley informed her, she nodded. “Good. We’d better get down there. Maybe we can shut it down before Gil gets back.”
Jägers and Wulfenbach troops were standing by in the cathedral square when Ardsley and Miss Agatha returned, and Princess Zeetha and Higgs met them on the steps and fell in beside them. “Lars told us,” Princess Zeetha said before Miss Agatha could ask what they were doing there. “Father’s already inside.”
“Where’s Krosp?” Miss Agatha asked.
Higgs snorted. “Off with a tabby, last I saw, milady.”
Miss Agatha shook her head. “He would. Lead on, Mr. Wooster.”
“I’m really curious about this thing,” said Princess Zeetha as Ardsley pulled ahead of the group slightly. “Yes, it’s a weak point that needs to be addressed, but it could also have its uses.”
“So you think we should seal it rather than destroy it?”
“Possibly. Let’s look at it first.”
The baron was talking with a Keeper when the four of them burst into the portal room. “Ah, Wooster, well done,” he said. “Zeetha? What do you make of this thing?”
Princess Zeetha hummed as she looked over the equipment. “Reminds me of Queen Luheia’s Mirror.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“It’s said the mirror was the magic gate that brought our ancestresses to Skifander,” Princess Zeetha explained to Ardsley and Miss Agatha. “Maybe-when the time comes-I can use this to get home again.”
“The controls do appear to be adjustable,” the baron added. “But unless you were planning to leave in the short term....”
Princess Zeetha raised an eyebrow. “Agatha’s still a novice. I can’t leave.”
“Then we need to devise a way to ensure that the portal can’t be used as a point of infiltration.”
“Some sort of shield, perhaps?” Miss Agatha ventured. “A strong metal, say, that could withstand impacts, placed close enough to the event horizon that nothing coming through can get around it....”
“Rather hard luck on the arriving party if it’s a friend,” Ardsley noted.
“Yes, but if that were happening regularly, the device wouldn’t be hidden away like this, would it? It’d be out in one of the squares, where the tourists are.”
“We have not sseen thiss portal ussed, Misstresss,” said the Keeper. “One of uss iss normally sstationed here-unlesss the abbesss ssendss uss away.”
Miss Agatha frowned. “And where is the abbess now?”
“No one seems to know,” replied the baron. “A squad of Jägers is searching the building now.”
“I don’t like this. There’s no good reason for her to be using this portal. She shouldn’t be leaving town except on church business anyway, and unless it were an emergency, nothing would prevent her from leaving by regular means of transportation.”
Ardsley had to stifle a proud smile. The abbess wasn’t one of the people on whom he’d been briefed, but he’d come to the same conclusion about her himself. Miss Agatha’s powers of deduction weren’t as weak as he’d feared, and neither was her ability to judge character.
“The real question,” she continued, regarding the portal through narrowed eyes, “is what bad reason she has for using it. If she’s smart, she won’t keep any incriminating papers that would give us any clues.”
Oh, well done indeed, milady, Ardsley thought warmly, still holding back a smile. I shall have to take the same care myself, but as I am fond of you and Master Gil, I shan’t mind the inconvenience.
For his part, the baron had begun smiling-a small smile, of the sort he got when testing Master Gil, but a pleased one nonetheless. “Go on.”
Agatha went on, “She could have left last night; there was enough commotion outside with all the festivities that no one would have noticed. Of course, for all we know, she did-but I would have thought she’d take care to be back by now, so her absence wouldn’t be noticed.”
“Well spotted. And judging from the settings and the fact that the system’s still warm, it’s been used within the last few hours.”
“Since Gil left for Sturmhalten?”
The baron’s smile grew. “More than likely.”
“So she’s probably gone to someone who was working with Prince Aaronev, which means we definitely need to seal the portal somehow, and the sooner, the better.”
The baron raised an eyebrow. “Before she returns?”
“I don’t want anyone in my city who’d be a party to... to that!”
“Oh, no, of course. But she would be more valuable alive, as a prisoner to interrogate, than dead.”
Miss Agatha blinked. “Oh. Yes. There is that.”
Princess Zeetha squeezed her shoulder. “You’re not wrong, zumil. We do need to seal the door quickly. Just not until after-”
The discussion quickly became moot, however, as the portal began to activate. The baron jumped out of the way and called for guards, and every armed person present readied his or her weapon. So when the abbess jumped through and the portal shut down behind her, she found herself very thoroughly surrounded.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.
“I could ask the same of you, Reverend Mother,” Agatha returned.
“Pah! You think I intend to answer to some chit of a girl foisted off on my city by this two-bit usurper?”
“Wrong pronoun,” Agatha snarled, charging her death ray. “This city is mine.”
The abbess snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself, child. You may have fooled a broken castle and a desperate people, but you are no true Heterodyne.” She drew her sword-and Princess Zeetha hacked it in half before Ardsley could even blink.
“HOLD!” interrupted two male voices, one of them Master Gil’s. The other took Ardsley a moment longer to place, as he hadn’t heard it since Paris.
“If you harm Lady Heterodyne,” Prince Tarvek went on, “I will have you flayed.”
“Now, hold on,” said Master Gil, trying not to sound amused but failing, to Ardsley’s ear. “My wife, my cathedral, and my problem. You’re still a prisoner, remember?”
“All right, then, he’ll have you flayed.”
“That’s more like it.”
“You, too, think too highly of yourself, princeling,” spat the abbess. “If you think you’re irreplaceable, you’re mistaken.”
“Oh, I know what the family thinks of me,” Prince Tarvek jabbed as Master Gil escorted him further into the room. “But your only function is to command the Bloodstone Paladins, which haven’t been used in two hundred years. You’re neither a spark nor a mechanic. You can’t get them running on your own. And with the castle repaired, they’re not needed for defense. I may be replaceable, but you?” His lip curled. “You’re expendable.”
In Ardsley’s peripheral vision, Miss Agatha turned a switch on her death ray.
“Your grandfather knew you were too soft,” the abbess snarled. “But mark my words, the Storm King will return, and you and these impostors will-”
BZZAP!
As the abbess crumpled to the floor, all eyes turned incredulously to Miss Agatha.
“I set it to Stun,” Miss Agatha promised and pointed to the switch to prove that it was indeed on its lowest setting.
Master Gil knelt to check the abbess’ pulse. “Yeah, she’s alive. Jägers, get her out of here. Where do you want her, Father?” he asked as he stood up again and got out of the way of the Jägers.
“Send her to Castle Wulfenbach,” replied the baron. “She’ll be less likely to escape from there, and I do wish to question her further.”
The Jägers looked at Miss Agatha, who nodded, and nodded back. “Hokay, Herr Baron,” said one of them, and they hurried out with their burden.
Prince Tarvek, meanwhile, was examining the portal controls. “These are the coordinates for the Refuge of Storms,” he reported. “So she’s been working with my cousin Martellus von Blitzengaard. That’s good news and bad news. The good news is that he’s too much of a blowhard to come in this way. Whatever attack he orchestrates, he’ll be planning to come in through the front gate. The bad news is that he may not accept Agatha’s claim or her marriage as legitimate. His faction of the Knights of Jove has always opposed Lucrezia, but that doesn’t mean he won’t kidnap Agatha for his own purposes. And if he gets close enough to try it, he’ll more than likely plan to go out this way.”
Miss Agatha looked at Ardsley in bewilderment.
“This is Prince Tarvek, milady,” Ardsley explained.
Prince Tarvek turned, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Oh. Forgive me, Lady Heterodyne.” He bowed, and Ardsley couldn’t help noticing that he stayed where he was, a respectful distance from Miss Agatha.
The baron looked at him narrowly. “You’re being unusually cooperative, Tarvek.”
Prince Tarvek huffed and squared his shoulders. “Yes, well, I see no reason not to be under the circumstances. I did declare my intent to remain your loyal vassal, after all, and I do wish to clear myself of any suspicion of complicity in my father’s crimes, such as the murder of numerous female sparks, including my sister, in an attempt to create a neural clone of Lucrezia Mongfish.”
Miss Agatha drew a slow, deep breath, then nodded once and turned to Master Gil. “I’m glad you’re back, Gil,” she said briskly with undertones of Spark. “I’ve got an idea for how we can block the portal to prevent anyone from getting in, but if there’s a risk of someone kidnapping me....”
“We need a lock that you can’t open alone,” Master Gil agreed, his own Spark kindling. “Let’s go find some paper.”
She crossed to him and took his arm. “A voice print is right out.”
“Oh, definitely.” He fell into step beside her. “Blood is too slow.”
“And messy, painful, and fallible, if they manage to steal a sample of your blood.”
“Ha, true. What does that leave?”
“What does that leave? Hm. Fingerprint, retinal scan... hm... hmmm....” The sound of her heterodyning faded away as they disappeared down the hall.
Prince Tarvek sighed wistfully after them.
“Touch her and die,” Princess Zeetha growled.
Prince Tarvek cast her a baleful look. “And who, pray tell, are you?”
“Zeetha, Daughter of Chump.”
The baron rolled his eyes.
“One of Gil’s doxies?” Prince Tarvek sneered.
“Nope.” Princess Zeetha leaned against Higgs’ shoulder as if it were a mantelpiece and grinned. “I’m his sister.”
Prince Tarvek went beetroot, and Ardsley excused himself quickly and got as far out of earshot as he could before laughing.
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