CHAPTER 2
Hark to the laughter of a Spark—
All Good Folk be home by dark.
—Folk Rhyme
His memories of that day were, for the most part, blurred. So much time had passed since then—and so many, many things had happened in that time. Still, that day’s final scene would remain sharply etched in Klaus’ memory forever. It was a scene he had replayed a thousand times in his head—the last time he had ever seen her.
Where had he made his mistake?
The room itself was an intimate chamber set high in a corner tower of a castle in the mountains—somewhere in the tangle of little kingdoms that sprawled north of Mechanicsburg. The view over the surrounding town was breathtaking, a panoramic sweep that carried the eye out across the wide valley and all the way to the encircling, snow capped mountains. Although it was late, countless lights twinkled below, echoes of music and laughter floating through the tower’s leaded-glass windows.
The celebration had been going on all day. It would still, he was sure, be going strong when dawn came. The day before, the people of this town had been the terrified slaves of the Chatelaine of Red Glass, but that had all ended when Bill and Barry, the legendary Heterodyne Boys, accompanied by Klaus, Lucrezia Mongfish, and Zzxzm, the sentient magnet9 accidentally crashed their airship into the ornamental fountain of Ruby Glass Castle. There, they discovered the hidden caverns beneath the town, and the terrible secrets they contained.
It was now forty-eight hours later. The Chatelaine’s army of luminescent fungus men had been destroyed, every hapless captive freed.
The Chatelaine’s death had been cause for rejoicing and celebration throughout the town, but it had cast a pall among the Heterodyne party. Bill and Barry always wanted to reform their enemies, not kill them. They would happily battle rampaging monsters with electrical grenade throwers or earthquake machines, but they were convinced that anyone, given a chance, could change their ways and work together to make Europa a better place. Whenever they failed, whenever a Spark was killed, they saw it as a personal failure. When the townspeople first realized they were free, the Heterodynes had silently tolerated the inevitable cheers and back-slapping; but when the music and beer had begun to flow, they had quietly slipped away. Klaus had tried to talk to them as they left, but Barry had pushed past him, growling: “I will accept that sometimes a villain has to die, but I’ll be damned if I’ll take free drinks for doing it.”
It had taken hours for the rest of the Heterodynes’ friends to escape the parties, and when they finally returned to the Castle, they had not been terribly surprised to find only a note waiting for them. Bill and Barry had gone on ahead, off to deal with a runaway knitting automaton in a neighboring town.
Klaus understood the Heterodynes’ feelings, but he had seen the spore-chambers. And smelled them. Lucrezia had lured the Chatelaine inside with her shadow puppets, and he had unhesitatingly thrown the lever on the great glass furnace. Some things were best cleansed by fire.
It had all been followed by a long day of listening to boring speeches, and aiding in the selection of a new town council. Finally, Klaus and Lucrezia were alone with each other. It was the first time in over a week, but Klaus felt like it had been months.
The room itself was only small by the rather grand standards of the rest of the castle. It was entirely dominated by a colossal curtained bed. Layer upon layer of sumptuous hangings in a riot of velvet, satin and brocade were drawn back by ropes of gleaming tasseled silk, showing off yet more layers of gorgeousness. Exquisitely inlaid rosewood cabinets lined the walls. These were oiled and polished to a luxurious glow, which reflected the warm light from the lamps, and made it seem to hang in the air like a luxuriant golden mist.
When Klaus had first entered the room, he had wandered around a bit, opening cabinets. Idly, at first, but with more and more astonishment at each reveal, until he had finally given up and poured himself a calming drink from the magnificently stocked liquor cabinet. Apparently, the Chatelaine had truly been a connoisseur of decadent excess.
Lucrezia, of course, loved the place. She had watched his explorations with open amusement as she stood in front of one of the room’s many ornate mirrors, slowly letting down her hair. When he had retreated to the bed, she had laughed and turned to face him.
Ah, that was a memory he knew would remain forever. Lucrezia standing, looking at him, slowly stalking him, her face taking on that hungry look she only showed when they were alone. She was dressed in a velvet bustier and a sheer pair of harem trousers—the ones he had purchased for her as a joke last time he was in Morocco. The joke was on him now. The trousers provided a tantalizing glimpse of her legs and clung to the lovely swell of her hips. She raised one arm above her head and posed, leaning on one of the bed posts. Then, still holding the post, slowly bent forward, deliberately straining her overstuffed top. He knew how much she loved to tease him, but he didn’t mind. It was a game they had played together for a long time now, and the outcome was always a win for both.
He allowed himself to run his eyes over her appreciatively, and was so caught up in what he saw that what she was saying didn’t register for almost half a minute. When it did, it jolted Klaus out of his reverie cold.
“You what?”
Lucrezia smiled and exaggeratedly rolled her eyes before turning away. She gently swayed her hips as she selected a dusty cut glass ewer and slowly poured something cherry red into a small crystal goblet.
“There’s no need to shout, darling,” she sighed in that breathy tone of hers that always sent shivers down his spine. She turned about and posed again, with the drink in her hand. “I’m going to marry Bill Heterodyne. He asked me yesterday… finally.”
She raised the glass to her lips, but paused as Klaus interrupted.
That had been very well played.
“Lucrezia, are you out of your mind?”
She laughed delightedly and with a single, graceful move, moved onto the bed before him. Her hand slid delicately along his jaw. “Oh, you’re so sweet,” she said. She then sharply slapped him, and began to breathe a bit faster. “I knew you’d take it hard.” She bit her lower lip and looked into his eyes.
She had amazing eyes. Green, deep and oh, so dangerous. “But I’m going to do it. I’m going to renounce my father’s work and join up with the ‘Good Guys.’”
Before Klaus could reply, she’d spun about and leaned back against his broad chest. This afforded him both the fragrance of her hair, an intoxicating blend of jasmine and carbolic acid, and a magnificent view of her cleavage. That was so like her. Lucrezia would never play only a deuce when she had a death ray as well.
Klaus closed his eyes. This didn’t really help. “Oh, and I don’t count?”
She shrugged against him. “Oh, Klaus. You may work with them—but you have far too much of a dark side of your own.”
Klaus tried to analyze this. Thinking was always so… difficult with this woman around. “Oh?” he squeezed her shoulders gently. “So do you.”
She laughed delightedly, spun about again and was kneeling in his lap, one hand gently tousling the back of his head. “Oh, I certainly do! But that’s what you like about me, isn’t it?”
His eyes flicked down momentarily. They both smiled. “One of the things,” he conceded. His arms tightened around her.
She made a small movement with the hand holding the goblet. He loosened his grasp. She daintily placed the drink—
the still untouched drink—
on the bedside table, and then suddenly, she was on the other side of the mattress, just out of his reach, coyly looking at him over one exquisite shoulder. The light was perfect.
Had she planned that?
“Now Bill knows that I’m bad, but he thinks I can change.”
Klaus snorted. “He’s wrong. They think that about everybody. I know you too well. You’ll soon be bored out of your mind, and you’ll try something.” He had a sudden moment of realization. “In fact, this is probably all one of your schemes right now, isn’t it?”
That had thrown her. Klaus knew he had been one of the very few people who could do that, which probably explained everything. Had it been too late, even then?
She looked at him seriously, no doubt for the only time that entire day.
“No, Klaus. This isn’t a game. I am determined to change. I do love him. It should be enough.” A brief look of frustration flickered across her face. “Besides, they always win. There must be something to their philosophy.”
There. Then. That was when he should have gotten out of bed. Commandeered a coach, or an airship, or anything. Left town and gone back home. Locked himself in and got to work in his long-neglected laboratory on something… anything that didn’t involve tearing across the countryside with bombastic heroes and their barking mad enemies and their enemies’ beautiful daughters… instead, he’d been weak, fool that he was. Instead, he had simply leaned forward and fixed her with a stern look.
“This isn’t about philosophy,” he growled. It came out louder than he had intended. “Bill is my friend. I won’t let you—”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Is that how you plan to change my mind?” she whispered, “By shouting at me?”
And then her mouth was under his lips, her body locked in his arms, and he in hers…
Much later, the lights of the village below still gleamed in the darkness as they collapsed for the final time. Klaus lay back, breathing deeply, the sweat drying from his skin. Lucrezia opened her eyes and languidly rolled atop him. Klaus’s eyes opened wide in disbelief, but she merely began to gently tease her fingertips along the great scars that covered his chest.
Klaus relaxed and sighed in contentment, then reached out and snagged the goblet that Lucrezia had oh-so-casually placed next to him. He gratefully drank it down. The liquor was sweet and crisp, with an unfamiliar tang.
Lucrezia watched him with heavy-lidded satisfaction, then a wistful smile spread across her face. “Oh Klaus,” she whispered. “I will miss you. But I’m afraid I simply can’t have you around complicating things.” She ran her fingertip along his shoulder. “If only by being such a temptation.” She sighed and snuggled against him. “I’m afraid you really will have to go,” she said in a small, sad voice.
Klaus had smiled. “Hah!” he chuckled, “Anghowr d’jer thirg yg—”
He paused. That statement hadn’t come out as he’d expected. He’d stared at the empty goblet in his hand. The goblet Lucrezia had filled hours ago. The goblet she hadn’t drunk from. The goblet she’d—
“My dring,” he enunciated as clearly as he could. “Hyu pzind by dring.”
Her face swam into focus. She must’ve crawled right up to stare directly into his face—watching him with a charming scientific interest. “Not poison, silly,” he heard her chiding him from a thousand kilometers away, “I’m one of the Good Guys now, remember?” She leaned in and chastely kissed his nose. “Goodbye, darling.”
He reached for her as everything collapsed into blackness…
No, this was pointless indulgence. He had years ago realized that his grave mistake had not been made that night in the castle in the mountains. No, it had been made long before that, made when he had first known what Lucrezia was, and yet allowed himself to fall into a delicious, dangerous romance, instead of running for the hills as any sensible person would have done. Well, Sparks were not known for being sensible, but Klaus had liked to think he was above all that…
Baron Klaus Wulfenbach made an exasperated noise as he resurfaced from the memories that had held him captive. He shifted his weight trying to sit up, then grit his teeth in pain. At the foot of the bed, Doctor Merrliwee, a trim, serious-faced woman, glanced up from the machine she was adjusting and made a quick, no-nonsense gesture before returning her attention to her instruments.
The doctor’s assistant bustled over and adjusted Klaus’ pillows. “Please try not to move too much while the doctor is working, Herr Baron.” Klaus ignored her and glared at the golden locket in his hand, the beautiful face of Lucrezia smiling back at him from the frame. Set facing her, in the other half of the locket, was a matching miniature of Bill Heterodyne—his old friend—so young—smiling happily. The painter had captured their likenesses with breathtaking skill.
Lucrezia had married Bill, as she said she would, and by all reports, been happy, for a time. He had been glad to hear that. But… what had happened to them? Where were they? Lucrezia had done such a good job of putting Klaus out of the way… it had taken him years to return home. And when he had…
He was no closer to knowing now than when he had fought his way home to find Europa in ruins. And now, after all this time, there was a girl. Lucrezia and Bill’s daughter. Raised by Bill and Barry’s old constructs, Punch and Judy, no less. And for some reason kept hidden away—a secret—apparently from him. Why? Hadn’t he traveled with them? Fought by their sides through all kinds of adventures? Weren’t they his old friends?
Klaus turned the locket over in his hand, and examined the back. It was a strange little device—and now that it was broken open—obviously much more than just a simple piece of jewelry. It had been taken from the soldier captured along with the Heterodyne girl back in Beetleburg, but it was obviously not the soldier’s property. It even had the girl’s name and address on the back. When questioned, the soldier, whose name was Moloch Von Zinzer, confessed to having first stolen the locket, then broken it by throwing it against a wall in a fit of rage. It was large and sturdy, the front decorated with the famous stylized trilobite of the Heterodynes. That, in itself, was not unusual. Throughout Europa, it was common for anyone with any kind of affiliation—to one of the Great Houses, old noble families, Universities, guilds or fraternal orders—to wear a sigil proclaiming their connection. A large pin at the throat was the most usual place for this little bit of heraldry. There were no official regulations about who was allowed to wear what—as long as one was willing to risk embarrassing misunderstandings, or even the possible wrath of legitimate members of the group in question—one could wear what one liked. The trilobite of the Heterodynes was worn everywhere, and simply marked the wearer as one of the vast group of people who loved stories of the Heterodyne Boys and their adventures. And yet… Klaus thought… for this girl—this new Spark who had slipped through his fingers, it had been the real thing—but how could he have known?
The locket opened on recessed hinges, revealing the portraits. Simple enough, to any casual observer. But the impact that had broken the mechanism had also caused the back of the case to pop off—to expose a small compartment behind Lucrezia’s portrait. A similar compartment lay behind Bill’s—Klaus had pried it open during his initial examination. The hidden mechanisms inside were now laid bare—strange watch-like movements that needed special lenses to see clearly. But this was clearly not a device for telling time. Deep within the framework of the tiny assemblage, Klaus could see fantastically coiled springs that powered tuning forks as delicate as human hairs.
Klaus had always had an artistic eye. This meant that, when dealing with Sparks, he was often able to identify the creator of a particular piece of technology through nothing more than their stylistic quirks—the type of gearing they preferred, for instance, or the type of stitching on a construct. Because of this knack, he was able to identify this locket and its mechanism as the work of Barry Heterodyne. And yet… it was more sophisticated, more… intense than anything he had ever before seen his friend create. Barry had always been a mechanical genius, it was true, but this little machine was a new high. It was clear to Klaus that his friend had poured everything he had ever learned into this little device. It would take time and careful study to understand its full potential.
Normally, Klaus would have found this exhilarating. An intellectual puzzle of this caliber came along all too rarely. Unfortunately, the appearance and escape of the girl, and all these implied, left him no time for such amusements. There was going to be trouble because of this, and it would require swift action.
Doctor Merrliwee straightened up and slipped a screwdriver into a loop at her belt. She then coughed discreetly. Klaus looked up. She had apparently finished tuning the speed-healing engine she had bolted around his leg, and was now about to activate it. She raised one eyebrow. “Are you ready, Herr Baron?”
Klaus took a deep breath and nodded. The Doctor nodded back, and flipped a series of switches. The machine chugged slowly to full power, lights began to flash, and a wave of hot, pulsing pain caused Klaus to clench his teeth so hard that stars swam across his vision. It would have to be endured. There was no time to allow himself the luxury of normal healing.
He lay back, closed his eyes, and ran through a complex series of mental exercises, shunting the pain to the back of his mind, where it could be locked away and ignored. After a minute or so, he breathed deeply, opened his eyes and turned his attention to the room beyond his bedside.
It was a large room, lined with tall windows, beyond which over a hundred assorted airships could be seen jockeying for position. These were some of the ships that danced attendance upon the behemoth airship, Castle Wulfenbach, but they were only a small part of the actual airship fleet of the Wulfenbach Empire.
The Castle’s escort was in even more disarray than usual, due to the recent emergency. As Klaus watched, a fire-fighting tanker, its water bags shriveled, dropped before the window, on its way to replenish its supply from some lake or river below.
Little ships moved between the larger ones, searching for damage along the vast expanse of Castle Wulfenbach’s hull. While escaping, Othar had bought himself an extra head start by causing havoc on board the Castle. He had triggered alarms, set fires, and released all manner of experimental subjects. Klaus made a mental note: he would have to think up some very solid defenses against this simple, yet surprisingly effective, strategy.
Klaus then paused and, with effort, reminded himself that he could delegate things like this now. With a tight smile, he scanned the crowd in the room and considered the abilities of each. Each member of his command staff was already overloaded with work—whose day should he make more interesting?
The people before him were a wildly varied lot, but they all shared the distinct look of People Who Got Things Done. Here were representatives from every corner of the Empire: Sparks, minions, mechanics and managers. Some were former enemies. Many were the results of experiments, given freedom, acceptance and purpose.
As they arrived, they clustered into small groups and conversed in hushed tones, waiting for the Doctor to finish her work. The mood was tense. Although quietly engaged with one another, everyone was keeping one eye upon their leader: the center of the Empire, the man who dictated the terms of the Pax Transylvania. With a final warning that he was under no circumstances to “fiddle with the controls,” Doctor Merrliwee snapped her bag shut and stepped back. Klaus cleared his throat, fixing his assembled command staff with a serious gaze. Once they could see that their Baron was alive, alert and back on the job, a palpable wave of relief washed through the room. Everyone straightened up and prepared to deliver his or her reports.
Klaus had witnessed his people’s extreme concern, as well as their obvious relief. Another stone settled onto the mountain of worries that weighed on his soul. The “Pax Transylvania” they called it—and also “The Baron’s Peace.” Everywhere the Wulfenbach Empire had influence, the fearsome battles that had once raged between warring Sparks were kept in check. The influence of the Pax Transylvania stretched from the Atlantic to Istanbul, and yet it was, for all the strength of the Empire, terribly fragile, resting as it did solely upon the shoulders of one man. Klaus had no illusions about the chaos that would ensue if he were to die, and he was still unsure of his son’s ability to share the burden of the Empire.
Ah, but that was a worry for another day. A stream of functionaries filed past, bringing him up to speed on the aftermath of the day’s disastrous events. Klaus listened carefully over the burbling and clucking of the healing engine on his leg, and did his best to project the demeanor of calm authoritarianism that his underlings found most reassuring.
The first report was from Doktor Øy, the minor Spark in charge of the laboratory decks. Øy was accompanied by a squat clank that scooted about upon a single small wheel, clutching a bundle of notes in its manipulators and blinking two large round lensed “eyes” that gave it an owlish look. “Some time between midnight and 2 A.M.,” Øy began, “Someone activated the Hive Engine that my Baron discovered in the possession of the late Doctor Tarsus Beetle. It had been placed in the Large Dangerous Mechanical Lab. Doctor Vg was listed as working late in that lab. So far, we have yet to find Doctor Vg.”
There was a burst of static, and the clank chimed in. “A Hive Engine is just one of the many nefarious devices constructed by The Other, the mysterious über-Spark who decimated the Great Houses of Europa a generation ago.” Doktor Øy smacked the clank, and with a squeal, it subsided into silence.
Øy looked embarrassed. “Forgive me, Herr Baron, it has a bad habit of assuming that everyone around it is a child.”
The tool doesn’t fall far from the hand that built it, Klaus thought to himself. “Don’t worry,” Klaus assured him, “No one expects anything to work perfectly the first time.”
Doktor Øy, who had rebuilt his “Moveable File Cabinet and Brain Stimulation Companion” seventeen times, grinned weakly and continued.
“A hive engine of that size is reported to release approximately one hundred warrior wasps. The clean-up crews have reported finding ninety-eight of them. They are still searching, but it appears that we have found them all.”
Øy’s clank once again buzzed to life. “The fight to free Europa from the scourge of The Other supposedly ended over a decade ago, but hive engines and other devices are occasionally still found. This is the first time on record that one has been purposefully activated.” Doktor Øy was frantically slapping at a panel of buttons and switches on the clank’s side, then gave up and pulled a spanner out of his pocket. He incapacitated the mechanism with a single, brutal blow. With an apologetic grin, he dragged it from the room.
Klaus frowned. Øy’s clank had raised an important point. No sane person would have willingly activated a Hive Engine. He had to admit that there were plenty of non-sane personnel aboard Castle Wulfenbach, but there were limits. It was another puzzle, and the answer Klaus kept returning to was extremely troubling.
Also troubling was the ease with which the creatures had nearly overwhelmed Castle Wulfenbach’s defenders. The next man to report was Colonel Chakraborty—the grizzled old veteran who was in charge of onboard security.
Stoically, Chakraborty recited evidence of the probable path the creatures had taken through conduits and service corridors—a route that had allowed them to move around the airship for quite some time before being detected. The fact that the creatures had spread as far and as quickly as they had was inexcusable. Alarms were in place that should have been activated immediately. Sentries that should have been present had somehow been reassigned. Controls had been sabotaged. At the end of his report, the Colonel silently handed the Baron his letter of resignation. Klaus considered it for a moment, and then eyed the Colonel.
“Before I accept this,” he held up the letter, “you have twenty-four hours to explain to me what went wrong.” The Colonel blinked, saluted crisply, and strode off, determined to make someone else’s day very bad indeed.
Next to be called was a creature that closely resembled a gigantic green-furred gorilla. Thick metal bands, a complicated set of goggles that automatically adjusted themselves whenever it moved, and an enormously tall cap—complete with shako—were its only clothing. When the creature spoke, it revealed a mouthful of thick, sharp teeth. This was Sergeant Nak, one of the many constructs who, upon the death of the Spark who created him, had taken service with the Baron. Nak was in charge of the military forces aboard the great airship. This was partly because of the brilliant mind that lay nestled behind those goggles, and partly because he was one of the few creatures that even the most unruly of the Empire’s rag-tag military forces hesitated to fight.
As Nak approached the Baron, he extended a massive paw. Clutched within was a small bunch of flowers, tied with a festive blue bow. A cheerful tag exhorted the reader to “Get Well Soon!”
Klaus looked at this blankly and then forced himself to smile. Sergeant Nak was indeed a terrifying fighting machine, but he was also considerate to a fault. Klaus had noticed that for many people on Castle Wulfenbach, this only served to make Nak more worrying, and so he always made a point of encouraging the green-furred creature’s kind impulses.
Nak’s report was concise. The fighting had been intense, but in the end, the Baron’s forces had prevailed. He gently unfolded a sheet of paper, and emotionlessly read off a list of those killed in the attack. He then read from another list, this time of units which could reasonably spare soldiers to replace those that had been lost.
The Baron pondered this for a moment, and made a few suggestions. Sergeant Nak saluted and shambled off.
Mister Rovainen, one of Klaus’ army of laboratory assistants, had performed the examination of the dead Slaver Wasp Queen. He held his report in one of his perpetually bandage-wrapped hands, but never bothered to look at it.
“The device was constructed at least seventeen years ago, and was no doubt launched in one of the original attacks.” Mr. Rovainen’s voice was thick, and rasped with a buzz that made listeners want to clear their own throats.
This information piqued the Baron’s interest. “How were you able to determine that?” Mr. Rovainen seemed to hunch deeper within his voluminous coat. “Doctor Vg. Before disappearing… Vg proposed a comparison test. Using brine crystallization rates. Vg…” Klaus could see that Rovainen was upset over the disappearance of his colleague. This was understandable, since the two had worked together for years. He took a deep phlegm-choked breath before continuing.
“I believe it was the age of the engine that resulted in a glitch in the Queen’s development, causing it to delay the release of the direct slaver swarm.”
A burst of static made everyone jump. Doktor Øy’s owl-eyed clank lurched into the room. “Slavers come in two varieties. The familiar ‘Warrior’ class, and the far smaller ‘slaver’ class. These latter are the creatures that actually infect humans, using a combination of chemical and protean bonding, forcing their victims to become the shambling, mindless creatures colloquially known as Revenants. These revenants become the slaves of The Other. As yet there is no cure—” There was a sudden loud “pop” and the clank exploded into fragments.
Doktor Øy stepped into the room, wild-eyed and clutching a smoking gas gun. “I am so sorry about that, Herr Baron. It’s back to the drawing board, apparently.” He bowed and exited.
There was a stir at the doors, and the assembled staff made way for a newcomer who stood framed in the doorway. The Baron took a deep breath and nodded. His son Gilgamesh strode to his bedside. Klaus nearly smiled, but caught himself just in time. One of the few bright spots in the last twenty-four hours was the widespread recognition that it was Gil who had slain the Hive Engine’s Queen. Unfortunately, just to make things more complicated, people had seen him being aided by the Heterodyne girl.
Klaus sighed. Another day, another crisis.
Almost as tall as his sire, Gil moved stiffly through the crowd. The young man was under a great deal of strain, but was doing a masterful job of hiding it. It would take someone who knew him well to see it. Klaus approved. A commander should not let his underlings see that he was under pressure.
Gil had a lot to be worried about, certainly, but could see that his father was in no mood to ease his mind. He stepped up and ran a critical eye over the healing engine.
Gil was a strong Spark, and his medical training had been excellent, but he could find no fault in the setup. He would have been astonished if he had. Dr. Merrilwee looked unassuming, but he knew that she was one of the finest medical minds of the Empire.
As always, his father’s expression was one of barely-suppressed irritation. Gil was unsure just how angry his father was, so he took a neutral tone. “You wished to see me, father?”
“Idiot!” Klaus snapped back.
Gil winced mentally, but kept his face straight. Chastising him in front of the assembled command staff? His father must be very angry indeed.
The Baron continued: “How long have you known that the girl was a Spark?”
Gil sighed. His father had good cause to be annoyed. “I suspected it back in Beetleburg. I knew this morning.”
Klaus’ eyes narrowed. “And yet you let me continue to believe that the Spark was Moloch von Zinzer, and that the girl was just his assistant. Wasting the valuable opportunity to study an apparently powerful Spark—a Heterodyne, no less—in the breakthrough stage! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like that, gone!”
Gil could see the shrewd sadness in his father’s eyes. “Was it that important to you to catch me in an error?”
Gil felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Had he been that obvious?
He had never known his father to be wrong, never.
He had always hoped, in a childish sort of way, that one day he would actually get to see his father make a mistake about something—anything.
Well he’d gotten his wish, and then some. He’d made a game of it, right from the moment he had noticed the grease under Agatha’s nails. Helping Von Zinzer fake the Spark, taking Agatha to assist in his own lab—it was true that Gil had hoped to prove his father wrong, but there had been so much more to it.
Agatha had been something very new to him. He had wanted to keep her to himself, hidden away in his lab, for as long as he could before his father took her away. Watching her break through as a Spark had been miraculous. The delight that had played across her face when she had first laid eyes on the little pocket-watch clank and realized that she had built it—and that it actually worked—that alone had been worth all the trouble he could possibly be in now.
And there had been the fear, too. The fear of what would happen to her if his father were to study her, as he had so many other Sparks.
And then Gil had panicked. He’d moved too fast, said all the wrong things, and she had been angry, of course… and now he couldn’t even apologize…
When Gil still said nothing, Klaus continued. “Did you know she was a Heterodyne?”
Gil shook his head. In that at least, he could honestly claim innocence. “No. I admit, that was a surprise. I didn’t know about any of that until DuPree told me. She thinks the whole thing is hilarious.” He winced again, visibly this time.
His father nodded briefly and he growled: “Well, now I know it too, as will the whole of Europa! And she’s gone off with Othar Tryggvassen no less!10 For all we know, Othar might have killed her himself, once he discovered she was a Spark!”
Gil paled visibly at this. His body tensed, and he glanced toward the door. DuPree hadn’t told him that Agatha had escaped with Othar. She’d been too busy laughing. If he went after her right now, would he be too late?
Klaus noticed the reaction and swore silently. Gil’s obvious agitation confirmed several suspicions that he had hoped were unfounded. “I want you to leave immediately with Captain DuPree. The two of you will find this girl and bring her back.”
Gil nodded. He’d been expecting this, and was happy to go, but the addition of Bangladesh DuPree made things… difficult. “Father, I can’t just grab her by force and drag her back here. She’s a Spark, but she hasn’t broken the peace.” This was a rather fatuous argument, as Klaus had people dragged off all the time. These were usually people who had broken the peace, and spectacularly so, but the fact remained that the ruler of the Wulfenbach Empire certainly could arrest anyone he pleased, no matter what the reason. And so could his son.
Gil started as Klaus thumped his bed. “Don’t be an idiot! She’s not just a Spark—she is a Heterodyne!”
It was true. Agatha’s very existence would be a threat to the Empire. The Heterodynes loomed large in the hearts of the people of Europa, and those who chafed under the Baron’s rule, especially among the old ruling classes, would not hesitate to make use of their legend. A genuine Heterodyne heir would be the perfect nucleus around which a well-organized “popular” revolt could made to crystallize. However Gil felt about Agatha, to his father, she could only be a powerful wild card that threatened his control over the all-consuming game he been playing—and winning—for so many years. Gil knew his father well enough to know that the Baron would already be laying detailed plans in advance against the plots that would hatch, the uprisings, betrayals and power-grabs that would follow—if news of a new Heterodyne was allowed to spread. Gil also knew that, politically, having the Heterodyne heir firmly in the control of the Empire would be the most important of all those plans. But this was Agatha, not some hypothetical “Heterodyne Heir,” and he found he didn’t much like what “firmly in the control of the Empire” might mean for her.
Klaus continued: “Plus, she is the daughter of Lucrezia Mongfish. That alone warrants our attention—and our extreme caution.”
This surprised Gil. He had heard rumors about his father and the wife of Bill Heterodyne, but they were rumors he had never paid much attention to. Scientifically speaking, he found the idea “icky.” It seemed those rumors may have been true after all. Still, this was obviously neither the time nor the place to ask.
He tried a different tack. “Father, she’s already angry with me. If I just go and arrest her—and with DuPree—” This argument slammed into the granite cliffside of Klaus’ determination.
“You will bring her back here. As a prisoner. Is this understood?”
Gil tried one more time. “Father, of course I’ll go after her. But if I can just talk to her, she might—”
“As a prisoner!” Klaus roared. “There will be no argument! You can save any romantic ideas you have for later.” Gil’s face went scarlet. Klaus paused, then continued, his voice slightly softer. “She must be contained as quickly as possible. There is no time for negotiations or compromises. Blame me, if you must. Let DuPree do the dirty work. Once she’s here, you can talk all you want—although I would advise against it. Now go. DuPree is waiting on Dock Forty-Three.”
With that, the Baron laid back and closed his eyes. With a touch of concern, Gil noted the evidence of strain on his father’s face, and checked the actual settings on the speed healer. He blinked as he realized how much pain his father must be experiencing. Arguments at this time would be counter-productive. He would have to do what he could on his own. With a simple “Yes, Father,” he turned to go.
Gil closed the great doors behind him, still feeling slightly ill. His thoughts were racing—he would have to move quickly. Suddenly, a plaintive cry of: “Hey! Wulfenbach! Over here!” caused him to look around.
Gil’s eyes widened in dismay and surprise. Moloch von Zinzer sat uncomfortably in a steel cage, hung from a rolling framework and flanked by a pair of guard clanks. Gil could see that he had arrived too late. The hapless soldier’s fate had been determined.
“I did what you wanted,” Von Zinzer complained. “I pretended I was the Spark like you told me to. I didn’t tell your father it was your idea.” He shrugged. “Not like he was really listening to what I had to say, anyway. He was really angry.” Gil could well imagine. Von Zinzer shifted in his cage. “Hey—you said you’d help me.”
Gil stared at him helplessly. The man was an enemy soldier who had confessed to threatening Agatha’s life at least twice, as well as, if you were going to be technical about it, assorted incidents of robbery, blackmail, threats of violence, assault, and burglary. Despite this, Gil found that he felt sorry for the fellow. He seemed to be a fairly ordinary sort of person—barely above a peasant—who had simply been unlucky enough to get caught up in the affairs of Sparks. From Gil’s experience, this meant Von Zinzer had been doomed from the start. Behaving like a saint probably wouldn’t have helped the man.
“Yes,” Gil conceded. “I did say I’d help you.” He reached into his waistcoat’s inner pocket and withdrew a small black pill. “Here. Take this.”
Moloch reached forward eagerly. “Great! Thanks! What is it?”
“Poison,” Gil replied. “It’ll kill you instantly.” He glumly told himself that having such a thing to hand said all-too-much about his life.
Moloch slammed backwards against the rear of the cage, setting it to swinging. “What? Get away from me! You’re crazy!”
Gil sighed. Of course, some people did have it worse than he did. He caught hold of Von Zinzer’s leg and deftly tucked the pill into one of the soldier’s pant cuffs.
“I am truly sorry, Herr Von Zinzer. I really am trying to help you.” He eyed the destination tag affixed to the bottom of the cage. It read “Castle Heterodyne”11. “I know it isn’t much, and I’m sorry. The way things are going, this might be more than I can do for Miss Clay.”
He turned away. Von Zinzer called after him: “You madboys! You’re all loony! If that’s your idea of ‘help,’ no wonder you people are always killing each other! God help anyone who thinks you’re his friend!” Gil froze, and then stiffly continued on his way.
A final burst of flame erupted over the delighted heads of the audience, and Master Payne bowed amidst a wave of cheering before continuing. “Before tonight’s main show, we have a special treat for you! Our own Professors Moonsock and Therm will share a song that they learned on their last trip to the Americas!”
As Payne swept off, two ladies dressed in exotic (and rather daring) costumes strutted onto the stage, strumming what appeared to be tiny guitars. As they played, they circled each other in a jaunty, high-stepping dance, before facing the audience and launching into song.
Apparently, they were well aware that they had no bananas, but it couldn’t be helped, perhaps the audience would care for something else? They quickly had the crowd merrily clapping in time and merrily joining in on the chorus.
Payne, observing from the wings, nodded in satisfaction, then continued backstage—through an open air labyrinth of canvas walls filled with puffing machinery and actors half in and half out of costume. People bustled to and fro, carrying props and lights.
Abner stood in the center of it all, a dozen people in varying stages of hysteria vying for his attention. Abner himself radiated icy calm. With a few succinct directions, instructions and threats, Abner sent them all on their separate ways. Payne smiled. The lad was getting pretty good.
As Payne stepped out of the shadows, Abner reached his hand around behind his back and handed the circus master a steaming mug of his favorite bitter apple tea. Payne frowned. “Save it for the paying customers, lad.” He then smiled and took an appreciative sip. “How do things look?”
Abner shrugged. “A good crowd, sir. The whole town is here. It was market day, so I’d be surprised if there’s anyone living between here and the river who isn’t out front.” Balthazar ran past carrying a red crate. Abner watched him go. “—and if that’s what I think it is, it means we’re almost out of ‘Mimmoths On A Stick.’”
That was good news. Like most shows, the circus made most of its profits from the sales of treats, remedies, charms, and small souvenirs.
“And the troupe?” Payne asked, although he already knew the answer.
“On edge. They’re calming down now that the show’s under way.” A huge roar of laughter went up on the other side of the curtain wall. Payne eyed his apprentice. “And how are you doing?”
Abner took a moment to consider his answer. “It… it’s like a storm brewing. I know something is going to happen. I just want to get it over with.”
An odd breeze rippled the fabric of the walls. Payne cast his eyes upward. “Be careful what you wish for,” he muttered.
Abner nodded. “But I think we have a chance. As long as whoever shows up is someone who will listen to us…” He shrugged. “And who knows? Maybe nothing will happen at all.”
Payne looked at him askance. “Do you really believe that?”
Abner shook his head. “No sir.”
Payne again looked upwards in time to see the great black shape blotting out the stars. “Good. Because it’s show time.”
As always, the Circus Master’s timing was impeccable. With a crash, huge rows of electric arclights snapped on overhead, blinding performers and audience alike. The Wulfenbach airship had silently drifted down over the crowd—unseen until it was less than ten meters overhead. Soldier clanks stood outlined in the cargo bay doors, and the great steam cannons slowly tracked about. A loudhailer crackled, easily carrying over the noise of the crowd below.
“ATTENTION! THIS IS THE WULFENBACH AIRSHIP ISLAND QUEEN. EVERYONE IS TO STAY WHERE THEY ARE. PLEASE CO-OPERATE, AND NO ONE WILL BE HARMED.”
In less then thirty seconds, the ship had settled low enough for a crew of airshipmen to leap to the ground. The ship fired its compressed air harpoon cannons, driving six great mooring stakes into the ground, thick lines trailing upward. Onboard, the great capstans rumbled to life, the hawsers thrummed taut, and the enormous ship began to sink down to earth.
On the ground, the airmen took up positions around the anchor lines, drew the swords at their belts, and assumed guard positions.
From the cargo bays, great metal ramps rolled out and slammed to the earth with a single resonant crash. The thunder of three dozen giant brass and steel soldier clanks marching down the ramps filled the air. In the center of the group strode Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and Captain Bangladesh DuPree12, bickering like a couple who’d had a lot of practice.
“’No one will be harmed?’” she demanded. “How am I supposed to work here?” As DuPree considered success to be measured by the number of bodies she left behind, Gil thought any impediment to her efficiency was a thing to be encouraged.
“These people may know nothing,” he pointed out.
Dupree rolled her eyes. “Oh don’t start that again. I found the crash site, the place where she slept, and tracks of a caravan intercepting her. We followed those tracks and hey presto, a traveling show! She’s here.”
Gil didn’t try to dispute this. DuPree was a phenomenal tracker. “Yes, yes, but this time we want the job done without incident. There’s politics involved.”
DuPree grimaced. Usually, when she heard the word “politics,” it was had something to do with Klaus yelling at her. “It’s not my fault if I’m always sent to deal with unreasonable people.”
Gil remembered that he had once tried to determine what kind of person DuPree considered “reasonable.” Thanks to an experimental variant of self-induced shock therapy, he no longer remembered the details. “Just find her.”
“Hmf.” DuPree considered stabbing Gil in the eye, then rolled her eyes and told herself that it probably wouldn’t shut him up anyway. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
They stopped talking as they approached the crowd, attempting to present a united front13. The crowd had sorted itself into two distinct groups. The first was made up of the audience, who appeared to be trying to hide behind the local Burgermeister. The second comprised the members of the circus, who were doing the same thing behind Master Payne. No one had been foolish enough to run. Of the two obvious leaders, the Circus Master was the most impressive looking, so it wasn’t surprising that he was the one Captain DuPree chose to approach.
She stood for a moment studying his clothing and nodding in approval. It would be hard to slip a knife through all those layers. On the other hand, if she was going to kill the guy in charge, it would be to make a point. In which case, she’d want to be spectacularly flamboyant anyway, so politely slipping a knife between his ribs was already right out. She grinned at the thought. “You look like you think you’re smart. Who’s in charge here?”
Payne looked at Abner. Abner looked back. This appeared to be a trick question, and was most likely just an excuse to use harsher interrogation methods.
“Er… you are.” Payne ventured.
DuPree beamed. “Wow! You’re so smart—” her arm snapped out and snagged Abner by the collar, “I’ll have to slap this guy around instead!” Abner rolled his eyes.
Gil cleared his throat. “DuPree—”
Annoyance flitted over the Captain’s face. She tucked Abner’s head into the crook of her arm. ”I’m working here,” she said in tone of strained reason. “Do I come to your lab and tell you how to torture rats?”
Gil thought back to last week. “Frequently.”
DuPree nodded. “Yeah! That’s ’cause I know what I’m doing. Now stand back, and let me prove it.” She roughly hauled Abner upright.
“But what do you want?” Payne shouted desperately.
DuPree paused. With Gil around, certain tiresome, bureaucratic hoops did have to be jumped through. Oh, well. “We’re looking for a girl. Young. Sort of blondie-reddish hair. Healthy. Wears glasses. Caused a lot of trouble on Castle Wulfenbach a few days ago. The Baron wants her.” Abner rolled his eyes imploringly at Master Payne, who shrugged. Bang continued. “Everybody here is going to line up, so we can look them over.”
Payne tried to explain. “But she isn’t here. Besides, I’m only in charge of the circus. The locals won’t—”
“Too many details!” DuPree sang out. “Lesson time!”
She flexed the hand that held Abner and a powerful electrical jolt danced through him. When it cut off, he dropped to the dirt.
DuPree grinned and held up her hand. It was wrapped in a small machine that was still sparking slightly. She touched a dial and waggled her fingers. “This thing is great!” she remarked, grinning sideways at Gil. He angrily snagged her hand and examined it.
“That is a medical device! I made it for you to fix your hand! You aren’t supposed to use it as a weapon!”
DuPree laughed and jerked her hand back. “So I tweaked it. I like it better this way.” She glanced down at Abner, who was jerkily trying to sit up. “Trust me. If I’d just used my bare hands, he’d be in way worse shape.”
Gil opened his mouth. DuPree cut him off. “Look—Is this the girl?”
“Of course not!”
“Is he dead?”
“I said no one would be harmed!”
“If they obey.”
“Give them a chance!” Gil shouted.
Abner had shakily climbed to his feet. DuPree put a friendly arm around his shoulders. “Isn’t this always the way?” she asked companionably, one world-weary subordinate to another. “Management thinking it knows what works in the field? This could take all night.” She dropped her voice and spoke sotto voce, “Honest. If I was here alone, and you people were still just standing around, half of you would be dead. Then the rest of us could knock off early!”
“Everybody line up!” Payne roared. The crowd put their heads down and started shuffling into some sort of order when shouting erupted from the far end.
“Oy!”
“Hey!”
“There she goes!”
DuPree grinned. “A-ha! She tried to hide with the villagers and made a break for it!” A shriek filled the night. “—aaand a clank got her! Yeah!”
Conflicting emotions tumbled across Gil’s face. Slowly his hand reached into his coat. “Amazing,” he muttered. “I didn’t believe—”
He froze as a stubby gun barrel pushed up into his jaw. DuPree grinned lazily. “Oh come on now, you’re not going to try anything stupid, are you?” Gil’s eyes swiveled downwards trying to identify the type of gun. She continued: “Your problem is you’re still thinking ‘fiancée,’ when the word you want is ‘prisoner.’ She won’t like it, but hey—she obviously didn’t like ‘fiancée’ much either.”
“Shut up!” Gil snarled as one of the clanks approached. A frantically struggling female figure was tucked under its arm. “Clank! Put her down—gently.”
The mechanical soldier complied. “So what do you have to say about my methods now?” DuPree asked, smug. In the lights the girl stood, held in place by the clank’s grasp. It was Pix.
Gil blinked. “It’s not her,” he said.
“What?” DuPree whipped around and stared at the captive actress in surprise.
Gil continued, enjoying the moment. “Girl, yes. Red-blonde, yes. Miss Clay? No.”
“She could be in disguise!” But it was obvious that even DuPree didn’t really believe that.
“It’s not her.” Gil repeated.
“But she ran!”
Gil nodded. “Yes, that is puzzling. You’d think we were crazy people with guns, battle clanks, and a great big looming airship. What could have possibly motivated her—” Gil stopped dead.
Bang looked at him closely. She could tell that he’d seen something. “Oh? What is it, bright boy?”
Gil was staring at Pix’s feet. She was wearing a well-worn pair of sturdy shoes. Shoes he had seen before. “Those shoes belong to the person we’re looking for.” He looked Pix hard in the face. “Where is she?”
Pix stared at Gil. Then a light seemed to dawn and she visibly relaxed. “Oh! The madgirl! Jeez. I was afraid you was just out collectin’ blondes!” She swept a hand through her hair and gave him an appraising sidelong look.
“Yeah, we met her on the road yesterday. She wanted to travel with us, but we knew she was some sort of criminal, ’cause she said she was running from the Baron! We didn’t dare try to catch her, ’cause she had this whonkin’ big gun, ya know?”
Pix dropped her voice conspiratorially. “Now we knew there was something out in the forest, ya know? Something big. So we sent her off that way.” She narrowed her eyes. “Well, she went and found it all right, and she drove it right back at us! I guess she was mad ’cause we’d sent her away. But things didn’t work out like she planned, ’cause it turned and grabbed her and completely fried her!” She saw the look on Gil’s face and nodded in satisfaction. “Yeah, she was dead before she knew it, ya know? Like ‘Whoosh!’”
Gil stared at the girl. His mind processed what he had just heard over and over again, trying to find a different meaning to the words. A red haze filled his vision. DuPree looked up at his face and her eyes widened. She stepped back for a better view, a shiver of anticipation running down her spine. This could be entertaining.
All at once, Gilgamesh was looming over Pix, her vacuous, imbecilic face the sole focus of his mounting fury. When he spoke, several people in the crowd jerked to attention. Anyone who had ever heard those harmonics in a madboy’s voice never forgot the experience. “You say she drove a clank straight at you. That was a pretty rotten thing to do.”
Pix nodded. If parts of her brain were screaming at her to shut up, the rest of it was apparently too stupid to listen. “Oh, yeah. Well, we’re just lucky our plan worked so well. Who knows what she would have done if we’d let her stay, ya know? Just can’t trust that kind, I always say.” She seemed to realize that she was talking to “that kind” right now. A touch of worry crossed her face, but was quickly wiped away as a sly look took its place. “So… was there a reward?”
No one—not even DuPree, saw Gil’s hand move, but suddenly there was a vicious-looking pistol jammed against Pix’s face. It began to hum as a wheel on the side slowly gathered speed.
“A reward? For sending her to her death? And you’re telling me that she purposefully set some kind of monster on a group of helpless people? You’re lying! She would never have done that! Where is she?”
Pix looked up into Gil’s face and saw death staring back. She dropped to her knees in fear, but couldn’t bring herself to speak. The pupils of Gil’s eyes almost vanished in his madness. His thumb flicked a toggle on the gun and—
Abner grabbed Gil and tried to swing him about. It was like trying to move an iron statue, but it did have the desired effect of dragging Gil’s attention away from Pix, and fixing it on himself. “Stop!” Abner yelled. “Listen to me! That isn’t what happened!”
DuPree pouted. Things had just been getting interesting. “Hey!” She barked. “Who gave you permission to—”
“Shut up!” Abner didn’t even look at her. He stood glaring at Gil. “Listen!” He insisted.
Without taking his eyes off Abner, Gil shot out his hand and plucked a knife from the air—just before it hit the man’s back. In the same motion, he snapped the knife back at DuPree, where it buried itself in her hat.
“Talk.” Gil’s voice shook.
“These are the Wastelands!” Abner explained. “We have to be wary or we’d be dead! Yes, we met this girl, and yes, she wanted to travel with us, and yes, we sent her away. She scared the hell out of us! But the attack—that clank—it had nothing to do with her. She went off to the east. It came from the north. It just ripped into us, but she came back and stopped it with that damn big gun of hers. She died saving us. Pix here is trying to take credit for something that just happened, because she knows you’re looking for this person and she’s dumb and scared and hoping for a reward!”
DuPree sneered. “Pretty cold, after the girl saved you.”
Abner shrugged. “Yeah? Well, so we’re circus people,” he said flatly. “Grifting is one of the ways we survive. But she did save us, and we buried her like she was one of our own.”
Gil stared. His face was still terrible to look at, but the madness had receded. Now, he was just terribly quiet, but his voice was still dangerous. “I don’t want to believe either of you.” He took a deep breath and studied Abner’s face. “But your story—that—it’s what she would have done. You will show me the place where you say this happened.”
Abner looked worried. “But I… I can’t. It’s way back—” A large set of steel hands closed upon his arms and lifted him from the ground. Gil leaned into his terrified face.
“…and if you’re playing me false, if you people did do something to her, I’ll give you to Captain DuPree. Along with everyone else here.”
A small gasp of wonder and delight came from Bangladesh. “Really?” she breathed, “Honest?”
Gil surveyed the crowd. “Every single one of them.” He turned back to Abner. “Unless you tell me otherwise right now.”
Abner looked like a man caught in a trap. “She’s there,” he whispered.
Gil nodded and turned around. At his signal, the clanks snapped to attention, and began to march back to the dirigible.
DuPree sighed and turned to Pix, who stood stupefied, gaping first at the retreating Gil, then at the captive Abner, then back again. She punched the girl’s arm. “Well, you heard the cranky man, we gotta go. Don’t worry, girlie, if your boyfriend here is telling the truth, he’ll be back.”
This seemed to shake Abner free of his shock. “Um… I’m not actually her—” he began.
“Abner!” Pix growled as she grabbed him by the lapels. “Shut up!” She kissed him fiercely before spinning away. She only took two steps before she spun about again. Tears were in her eyes, but her voice was steady. “You’d better come back in one piece,” she threatened, “Or I’ll find you, you idiot! Don’t forget!”
Abner blinked in astonishment, but he shut up.
Less then two minutes later, the airship was moving off, its engines roaring. The audience members were vanishing fast—casting nervous glances at the circus and the sky as they went.
Payne grabbed the closest of the performers—a handsome, dark-haired young man in his mid-twenties. “Lars, pass the word—quietly. I want us packed and on the road in ten minutes.”
Lars looked shocked. “But it’s dark! And we’re paid up here for the next two days!”
Others who had heard this exchange started to join in, but Payne cut them off. “I want us gone before the townies realize that we brought that airship here.”
The implications of this sank in. Herr Rasmussin14 nodded briskly, reached into his coat, and with a snap, unfolded his dance-master’s cane. “Jig time!” he called out urgently. Everyone groaned.
The old campsite by the river was quiet now. The heaps of clank parts had cooled where they fell. The places where the earth had been torn showed raw, the grass still trampled. Where trees had snapped, the wounds were still bright yellow and oozing sap.
The main body of the crab clank was recognizable, but the interior had been almost completely burned and fused. The legs of the clank had managed to fall in an almost artistic pattern, so the modest mound of the grave lay within an encircling corral of red enameled metal. A small sapling had been planted on the mound, and leaning against it was a strange-looking gun, obviously broken. Gil stood silently for several minutes, fingering one of the tree’s bright green leaves.
Abner fretted. Finally, he could take it no longer. He had to say something. “That’s… the tree is something… One of the girls… that’s what they do in her village when someone dies. We didn’t know what your… um, what she would have liked.”
Gil nodded. “Dig it up.”
Abner looked shocked. “What?”
Captain DuPree smiled evilly at him as the Wulfenbach clank that stood nearby reached around and unsnapped a long shovel from the rack on its back. “What’s the matter, pal? Didn’t think we’d do that, did you? Say, maybe I’ll get to kill you after all!”
The clank dug quickly and efficiently, and it was only a few minutes before DuPree called a halt.
She hopped directly into the grave, and pulled aside the canvas winding sheet the clank had uncovered. A horrifically strong odor of burnt meat burst forth. Abner backed away, his hand over his lower face.
DuPree chortled and slipped the collar of her sweater over her nose and mouth. “Whoo! Damn! You can’t beat home cooking!”
“Stop it!” Gil leaned over the edge of the grave. His voice was strained. He eyed the charred figure. “That… that could be anybody.”
Captain DuPree slipped on a pair of leather gloves and exposed more of the body. There was a flash of green, as she pulled free a patch of burned clothing. Gil closed his eyes and looked ill.
After a few minutes, DuPree sat back and sorted through the objects before her. “Female. Young adult. Caucasian.” She lifted a half melted twist of wire and glass. “Glasses.” She flourished a swatch of the burned green tweed. “I remember this dress. No shoes. And no jewelry, except for this.” The object in question was tossed up to Gil, who snatched it out of the air and examined it closely. It was a brass gas connector ring, stamped with the Wulfenbach sigil. He had last seen it as he had slipped it onto Agatha’s finger. Even darkened by flame and coated in dirt from the grave, Gil recognized it. It wasn’t even a real ring, just a worthless machine part, but it had a devastating effect on his heart.
He clenched it tightly and turned away. “Yes. It’s hers. That’s her.”
DuPree stood up, stripped the gloves off her hands and tossed them into the pit. “O-kay! Clank! Get me a field coffin!”
Gil spun around. “What? What are you doing?”
DuPree climbed out of the hole. “Well, I’m not carrying her in my lap.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no reason—”
She poked him in the chest with a finger. “Listen. Your father told me to bring her back. Here she is—back she comes. Argue with him.”
Gil glared at her, then seemed to deflate. With a sigh, he turned away. “Why bother?”
DuPree stared at his back and frowned. This was worrying. Gil was always good for an argument.
Gil strode up to Abner, who stood nervously off to one side of the airship ramp. “Herr de la Scalla, I have seen enough. I’m inclined to believe your story. We’ll take you back once we’re finished here.”
Abner shuffled his feet. “Actually, sir, I’d rather just head back on my own.”
Gil blinked in surprise. “What? Across the Wastelands? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Abner held up his hands placatingly. “This is a main road, I should be fine. It’s relatively well-traveled—” he looked at Gil, “I don’t want people thinking we’re… you know… associated with the Baron.” His eyes flicked toward where Bangladesh was supervising the clank and he dropped his voice. “And Captain DuPree there, I’m sorry, um… I’d really rather keep her away from my people.”
Gil nodded woodenly. “That’s very sensible of you. See the Quartermaster while we’re finishing up here. He’ll give you some travel supplies. And… ah, please convey my apologies to your young lady. I’m afraid I got rather… upset.”
Abner stared. He hadn’t expected that. “Um… I’m so sorry about this, sir.” Gil looked at him blankly. “This girl—it’s obvious she was very... very special to you, sir.”
Gil nodded slowly and made an effort to pull his mind back from thoughts of Agatha—working intently on the flying machine—dancing with him to the music of the mechanical orchestra—fighting beside him during the Slaver Wasp attack—kissing him impulsively in the heady moment when they realized they had won and were not going to die after all. And finally, Agatha laughing at him, as he slipped the connector ring on her finger and completely botched what turned out to be his last chance to tell her what was in his heart.
“Special? Yes, she might have been. It might have been…” He trailed off, and a look of dark anger settled over his features. “But it isn’t. Just go.”
Abner went.
Gil stood alone for a long time, watching as the clank gently re-planted the sapling in the newly filled-in hole. He remained alone, looking at the tree, until the last of the clanks marched aboard the dirigible—and Captain DuPree shouted that if he didn’t want to come aboard, she’d happily leave him behind.
The sun was sinking toward the tops of the trees when Master Payne signaled that the caravan could finally stop. The animals were lathered, and the people weren’t much better. Payne had kept them moving through the night and all the next day, but there had been no complaints.
In this part of the Wastelands, the road was hard going—a pale shadow of its former glory. Everyone was exhausted from keeping watch for pursuing villagers, hostile forest denizens, or the return of the Wulfenbach airship.
When the front riders had returned to report that a lakeside glade with sufficient forage lay ahead, Payne had finally decided that they could risk making camp—if only because it would allow him the opportunity to get away from Pix, who had been fretting nonstop beside him throughout the entire trip.
It was charmingly obvious that Pix was worried about Abner. Unfortunately, her concern was vocally expressed in the form of an endlessly varied list of Abner’s unforgivable faults, stupidities and errors. Really, the girl was making Payne seriously consider reviving the old Put-The-Annoying-Person-In-A-Trunk-And-Drop-It-Into-A-Lake trick. But, he had to frequently remind himself, a good magician never performs the same trick twice.
“I can’t believe Abner cut in on my scene so soon! I had a lot more material ready.”
“Frankly, I thought the two of you worked very well together.”
“Well, yes, but if he’d just let me keep going a little longer, they probably wouldn’t have taken him. What was he thinking?”
Payne had already considered several scenarios where Pix had been allowed to continue to talk to the young man from the airship. In the latest one, it ended with him setting her on fire. He briefly allowed himself to savor this image, before dismissing it with a guilty start.
“I’d ask Abner when he gets back.”
The girl stared ahead fiercely. “He’d better get back.”
On another wagon sat Payne’s wife, Countess Marie. She was a regal woman who came by her title honestly. As she had remarked several thousand times since, her life would have been quite different if she had not been attracted to a certain dashing magician who had the ability to pull the most astonishing things out of a lady’s clothing, up to and including the lady herself. If pressed, she would smile and admit that “quite different” did not automatically mean “better.”
The Countess set the wagon’s brake, stretched, and slid down to the ground. She looked up at her companion, who had been sitting silently next to her. The girl was dressed in a billowy low-cut shirt and a tight, gaudy bodice which managed to leave something, if only a very little, to the imagination. Her face was overshadowed by a huge mass of thick, dark curls.
The Countess extended a hand. “Wake up, ‘Madame Olga.’ It’s time to rest.”
Agatha blinked. She had been deep in thought. “Yes, I guess so.” She climbed to the ground stiffly, then looked around, squinting her eyes. The Countess noticed and turned back to the wagon. “Ah, yes. Here.”
She fished a large pair of glasses out of a wooden box near the seat and handed them to Agatha, who took them gratefully and slid the looped wires behind her ears.
All around them, other wagons were stopping. People preparing to make camp shouted to each other as they saw to their animals. Agatha leaned against the wagon. “I still can’t believe that worked. Pix was amazing. A perfect, xenophobic peasant.” Agatha rubbed her forehead and breathed deeply. “But the people they sent. They… it wasn’t what I expected. I’m sorry. I… I hope Abner will be all right.”
The Countess began to unhitch the horses. Agatha automatically began to help from her side. When the Countess saw that Agatha knew what she was doing, she nodded in approval. “Think nothing of it. Abner owes you. We all do. That crab clank that killed Olga damaged several carts before she and André led it off. I have no doubt that it would have come back after it had finished them off.”
She grabbed the horse bridles and tethered them to a nearby tree. She tossed Agatha a curry comb as Balthazar bustled up with two large leather buckets of water. The horses immediately lowered their heads and began to drink.
The Countess continued as she began to rub her horse down. “You saved our lives. And you tried to save Olga’s, too, even after we sent you away. We had to do this.” She gave Agatha a reassuring smile. “Anyway, Abner is no fool. He’ll be fine. He’s a fast talker—he’s probably got them convinced you never even existed by now.”
Agatha smiled back, then tentatively fingered the blouse she wore. “Hm. Still… dressing her in my things. Doctoring the body. And—um—especially taking her place. Even her name. It’s not that I want to be caught, I know it’s practical. It just feels so strange. Disrespectful.” She looked contrite. “Sorry.”
The Countess patted Agatha on the shoulder. “Olga was with us for over five years. She was a good friend, and I knew her very well. The life—traveling and performing—it was everything to her. She was never happier than when she’d pulled a really clever scam—convinced some rube that she was a runaway construct, or a grand duchess who had been swindled out of her fortune, or a lost explorer from the moon. She loved that sort of thing.” She smiled at some private memory.
“And now? Now she gets to fool not just some gullible townie, but Baron Klaus Wulfenbach himself! If she weren’t dead, she’d have killed herself to play this part.”
Agatha digested this. “Show people are very strange.”
She hadn’t quite meant it as a compliment, but the Countess looked pleased. “You’ll get used to it.”
“That’s what worries me.”
The Countess laughed. Professor Moonsock strode up, a roustabout carrying a stack of horse blankets following along behind her. She shooed The Countess and Agatha away and began to examine their horses’ feet.
The two women walked back to Professor Moonsock’s wagon, where Agatha had been temporarily assigned a tiny fold-down bunk. The Countess patted a wheel. “I’m afraid you’re stuck here again, but tomorrow we should have something more permanent sorted out.”
“Really,” Agatha protested, “You’ve already done so much—”
The Countess stopped her with an upraised hand. “Oh, have no fear, my dear. You’ll earn your keep.” She looked toward the center of the camp, where the old cook was busy shouting orders. Waving a long wooden spoon like a general’s baton, he was directing a group of men who had already emerged from the surrounding forest with armloads of firewood. “If you feel up to it, I imagine Taki would appreciate some help once he’s finished setting up.”
Agatha was smart enough to know that her life with these people would be significantly easier if she was seen pitching in as eagerly as she could.
“Of course. It will be my pleasure.”
The Countess nodded in approval and sailed off. Left alone, Agatha climbed onto the wagon bench and collapsed weakly.
She felt… hollow. She had expected to be hunted by the Empire, but she hadn’t expected him. And yet, maybe she should have. Of course she should have. Hadn’t he taken an interest in her right from the start? It had been Gilgamesh Wulfenbach who had questioned her so pointedly about the whereabouts of Adam and Lilith. Gil who had watched her carefully, brought her to work in his lab, and hidden the fact that she was a Spark from his father.
Krosp had warned her that Gilgamesh was up to something, and so he had been, but she still wasn’t sure exactly what. Some kind of power play was going on in the Wulfenbach family, and Agatha had an uneasy feeling that she had narrowly escaped being made a pawn in a perilous game. Adam and Lilith had hidden her away from the Baron all her life—they had even died trying to protect her from him. And Lilith had said that Gil would only be the first of the powerful people who would try to control her—to use her for their own ends.
And yet, although she didn’t—couldn’t—trust him, she had liked him. Liked him very much indeed, if she was honest with herself, in spite of the fact that she had seen him do such terrible things… Liked him enough to briefly think it might be worth taking the chance…
All day, Agatha had struggled to forget the devastating pain on Gil’s face when he believed she was dead. Had he really cared that much for her after all? Agatha shivered.
Krosp ambled around the corner of a wagon and leapt up to sit beside her. He nudged Agatha’s arm with the top of his head, and she reached down absent-mindedly to scratch behind his ears. The cat tumbled over sideways into her lap and closed his eyes. “So that was ‘acting’ was it?” He growled. “I don’t understand. How did that fool anybody? You smelled exactly the same.”
The corner of Agatha’s mouth twitched upward. “I don’t think he noticed.”
Krosp opened one eye at the pronoun. “Oh? Well he’s obviously an idiot.”
Agatha let this pass. “So what’s Professor Moonsock going to do with you?”
Krosp opened both eyes and looked apprehensive. “Well, for starters, I promised to hunt her up some fresh mimmoths. She says: ‘so you can talk, so what?’ I told her I can swear, too, but she says she’ll teach me to do something ‘stage-worthy.’”
Agatha had yet to see Professor Moonsock’s act, but earlier, she had noticed several large bats hanging out the Professor’s laundry. Krosp’s apprehension might be well-founded. “That sounds fun.”
Krosp glared up at her. “Oh right. Like she can train me. What am I? Some moronic hound?”
“Oh, heaven forbid. So… you won’t do it?”
“Of course I’ll do it! She has cream!” The cat licked his chops. “I just don’t want her to think it’ll be easy.”
Agatha nodded. Krosp curled into a giant ball and began to purr. Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open and stared up at Agatha inquisitively. “Say, you smell kind of sad. This isn’t about that stupid Wulfenbach boy, is it?”
“No. Well, maybe…” Agatha paused, and then sighed. If you can’t be honest with your cat… she thought to herself. Of course, most cats wouldn’t include your secrets as amusing anecdotes in their memoirs, but still…
“Yes,” she said, in a low voice. “Seeing him like that… I still feel like I’ve done something awful. I just wanted to run out and tell him that everything was all right, that I wasn’t really dead. I almost…almost didn’t care what happened at all after that.”
Krosp rolled onto his back and watched her carefully—his head comically upside-down. “But you didn’t,” he said. “Why not?”
“Why do you think? Because it would have been hugely stupid.”
The cat waited for Agatha to continue, but there didn’t seem to be any more forthcoming. “That’s it?”
Agatha nodded glumly. “Well, yes. Isn’t that enough?”
Krosp’s tail lashed a few times. “In my experience, that doesn’t seem to stop most people.”
“Ever since my locket was removed, I can think more clearly.” She paused, trying to find the right words. “Krosp, you’ve read a lot of history. Have you ever read any Classical mythology?”
The cat flicked an ear dismissively. “A bit. I like history better.”
“Then you should know what happens to mortals who get mixed up with the gods. It never ends well. The Wulfenbachs are like the Gods of Olympus, they’ve got the power of life and death over the entire Empire.
“Doctor Beetle was a Spark! A strong one! And he was so afraid of the Baron, he got himself killed rather than let the Baron take him away. Your creator, Doctor Vapnoople—I met him! The students on Castle Wulfenbach call him “Doctor Dim!” What did the Baron do to him?
“And who am I? I’ve got no power, no protection. Nothing. If I had gone with Gil, maybe… maybe he would have been happy that I wasn’t dead, but what would happen after that? He would have taken me back to his father. The Baron killed Adam and Lilith! He gave orders that I was not just to be confined, I was to be kept sedated! And Gil…” Agatha took a deep breath and shook her head. “Even when he said he wanted to marry me, he made it into an order and tried to drag me off. And you saw how he acted with Pix…”
She hung her head. “…and even then, even then, it was still hard.” She absently scratched Krosp’s belly, and the cat stretched happily, closing his eyes and flexing his claws. “Even now, I feel kind of odd. He—they think I’m dead now. Even if I feel bad, I had to do it. It’s all right, I’ll get used to it. It’s just… hard to believe it’s over.”
“Don’t be a fool!” Zeetha snapped. She had appeared silently beside the wagon, as if she had dropped from the sky. Krosp leaped up in shock, eyes wide, fur bristling.
Then, to Agatha’s astonishment, Zeetha dropped to one knee and bowed her head. “Agatha Clay,” she said quietly. “I never got a chance to thank you for trying to save Olga. Nor have I yet apologized for my earlier outburst.”
This was certainly true. In the aftermath of the crab clank’s attack, Zeetha had taken charge of Olga’s body. She had changed the dead girl’s clothing, and stood by protectively while various members of the circus had applied their arts—giving Olga the finishing touches for her last role as the burned corpse of Agatha Clay. All the while, Zeetha had chanted a beautiful, haunting dirge in a flowing tongue Agatha knew must be Skifandrian. When Olga had finally been lowered into the ground, Zeetha had made a small cut on her arm, and allowed six drops of blood to fall upon the winding sheet before the grave was filled in. Then she had turned on her heel and walked into the woods, alone. Agatha had not seen her since, and had begun to think that the green-haired girl had left the Circus entirely.
Agatha shrugged uncomfortably. “Everyone was so busy. Besides, to have lost your friend—I’m so sorry. I wish I could have done more.”
Zeetha stood and nodded. “Olga was a good companion.” She waved toward the camp. “These others are kind, but they were never convinced I was telling the truth. Olga believed me. She helped me when I really needed it. I will miss her. But I have known since childhood that Death is always waiting to cut in on the dance.”
Then, to Agatha’s surprise, Zeetha sat down next to her. She was…different from when Agatha had first met her. Where she had been rough, full of suppressed anger, she now seemed serene. Her eyes were no longer empty. When she looked at Agatha, her gaze was alert, with a hint of friendship. Agatha realized that the girl was younger than she had first thought.
Zeetha took a deep, contented breath and leaned back, slumping comfortably against the wagon door. Agatha hardly knew the girl, but this seemed so out-of-character that she couldn’t help staring. Zeetha saw her surprise, and gave a rueful smile.
When she spoke next, her voice was soft. “Miss Clay, I have been wandering Europa for over three years now, searching for any news of my home. You are the first person who has ever even heard of Skifander.” She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “Can you understand? It was like I was asking after a fever dream. I… I was beginning to think that I had made it all up while I was sick. No one in any of the cities had heard of it, not even at the Universities. I was reduced to searching the Wastelands, interrogating every traveler I met. I thought I had gone mad.”
She paused, and looked out at the encircling forest. “I was this close—” she held two fingers about a centimeter apart, “To picking a direction and just walking until I found either Skifander or death.” She looked at Agatha again and grinned. “And I wouldn’t have cared which I found first.” She dropped her hand.
They sat silently together and watched the shadows darken under the trees.
Finally Zeetha continued. “But you—you have let me know that my home, my family, everything that made me what I am really does exist, and for that, I wish to thank you.”
Agatha shrugged. “Oh, well, I—”
Zeetha leaned into her face and shouted: “By starting you on warrior training! Tomorrow morning!”
She leapt to her feet and glared down at Agatha, who sat, wide-eyed in shock. “It’s ‘over.’” She snorted. “You speak like a child. The Baron’s people will be back, or if not, there will be others like them. You must be ready!”
Agatha looked up at her angrily. “What makes you say that? It’s a perfect plan. They think I’m dead!”
Zeetha cocked an eyebrow. “There is a serious flaw in this ‘perfect plan’ of yours. One that could undo everything at any time!”
Agatha puzzled over this, quickly running through everything they had done. She couldn’t think of anything wrong…
When Agatha didn’t answer, Zeetha gave a sardonic smile. “Just this: you’re not really dead, now are you?”
Agatha and Krosp looked at each other.
Behind Zeetha, the cooking fires ignited with a dramatic roar, and, just for an instant, she stood before Agatha—a fearsome dark goddess rimmed by fire. She grinned again, revealing her sharp teeth. “Tomorrow morning.”