Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (16 page)

Abner waited for a moment, but that seemed to be all she was going to say. Gingerly, he slid his arm around her shoulders. Pix looked up at him. She was beautiful. He’d known that, of course, but never before had he quite noticed
how
beautiful. Perhaps he should tell her this. “Let’s talk,” he said.

Pix nodded. “Yes.”

Some time later, Lars lifted the lid of a barrel. Agatha was huddling inside. “Ah. There you are.” He laughed.

She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Have pity on me, whoever you are.”

The young man grinned. “Yeah, I guess we haven’t met. I’m Lars. I’m one of the show’s advance men.”

Agatha looked up at him. He was very handsome, with dark hair and well muscled arms that showed under his short sleeves. “Is that some technical term for a leading man?”

He laughed again, and effortlessly lifted her from the barrel. His hands were large and steady. “No, although I
do
play Bill Heterodyne a lot. No, an advance man travels ahead of the circus. We scout the terrain ahead. It’s our job to keep the show from riding into a nest of monsters or wasting time going down a road that ends up being washed out—things like that.

“When we get to a town, we make sure it’s not full of cannibals or blood frogs. If it seems okay, then we have to find a place for the show to set up, figure out who we have to bribe, collect local information that might be good to include in the show, and try to get a good deal on any supplies we need.”

“That sounds pretty dangerous.” Agatha said, then thought a little about Zeetha, and Zeetha’s stick. “Hey, the next time you go, take me with you!”

That got yet another laugh. Agatha liked the sound of it. “Ah, are you one of my fans, already?” Lars chuckled, “I know I have a magnetic personality, but…”

“No!” Agatha was blushing a lot, today. “I mean, I just thought it would be a good way to escape—”

“Interesting. Usually we get farm girls who want to
join
the show to escape.”

“Oh? Escape from what?”

Lars grew serious. She had asked the question lightly, but suddenly Agatha wondered what he’d seen. “The tedium of farming. A family that thinks of her as nothing but a servant, or worse. The dull lad she’s doomed to marry. A town that remembers every one of her mistakes…”

“What do you do with them?” Agatha asked.

Lars immediately brightened. “Why, we
take
them, of course!”

Agatha looked surprised. “You do?”

They had been walking away from camp as they spoke, following a path that led across a shallow brook. Lars gallantly held out a hand to help her hop across on the flat stones that served as a bridge.

He nodded. “Sure. Some panic their first night away from home, and most of them, having succeeded in escaping their old life, leave us at the next town. But some—ah,
some
people set foot on the stage and never step off.”

Agatha gave him a shrewd look. “Like yourself.”

“Ha! Caught!” He struck a dramatic pose and his voice boomed forth. “You see before you a former cheesemaker’s apprentice, who foolishly stopped to see a traveling Heterodyne show when he was
supposed
to be delivering a wheel of Hungarian Kashkaval!” Lars threw his arms wide and looked impressive for a brief moment, but he had chosen his stage poorly. His boots slipped on the wet rocks and he toppled, plunging ankle-deep into the water. Agatha laughed and helped him up.

On the bank, Lars continued. “It was
The Heterodyne Boys and Their Anthracite Burning Earth Orbiter
.” He sighed happily at the memory. “That was over ten years ago and I’ve never regretted it.”

Agatha smiled. “My favorite was always
Race to the West Pole
.”

Lars clapped his hands. “Oh, yeah. That’s a good one. We haven’t done it in a while, though.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Different shows work better with different actors. It’s not like it’s a problem, there’s so many of them, you know? It just hasn’t come around in the rotation.” He eyed Agatha speculatively. “It’s about due, actually. Hmm… but there are some tough scenes in
West Pole
. Remember the scene on the burning submersible?” His voice suddenly shifted timbre, becoming lower and more intense.

“Renounce your father, lest his evil corrupt you!”

Lars paused, and looked at Agatha encouragingly. Agatha shivered. His voice, as he’d said the line, had sent an electric tingle down her spine. She thought back to the last time she’d seen the play.

It had been years ago, in Beetleburg, during one of the annual Lightning Festivals. Booths and revelers had crowded the streets. It had been easy to slip away from Lilith, who had been busy dickering over a set of exotic canning jars—and who, Agatha knew, would not have approved of her foster-daughter’s enthusiasm for the show playing on the makeshift stage in the market square. It had been a rare forbidden pleasure, and Agatha had watched intently. Later, she would replay the wonderful story over and over in her head.

Lars had begun the scene where Bill Heterodyne and the villainous Lucrezia Mongfish were trapped together aboard the slowly combusting submarine. It was one of her favorite scenes, and she knew how it went:

“One cannot be corrupted by Science! And Science alone is my master!”

Lars nodded approvingly and moved closer. “Then your master is mad! As mad as you have driven me!”

“Is it madness to see clearly? You only confuse me!”

Lars swept her into his arms. “Allow me to elucidate.”

Agatha tilted her head back and looked him in the eyes. “…It could be an interesting experiment, if I but dared…”

“Don’t tell me you fear the experiment?”

“I fear the result! But the experiment itself—why, that is but
Science
!”

“For Science, then!”

“For Science!”

On the stage, it was an intense scene, romantic and passionate—and it was meant to end with a torrid kiss. Agatha and Lars blinked at each other. He held her tightly in his arms, pulled close so that their faces were only centimeters apart. She, gazing up into his face, was clutching at his shirt and pulling him down toward her in a most unseemly way.

They broke apart and Agatha fanned herself with her hand. The weather seemed to have turned unseasonably warm, and her heart was pounding.

Lars took a deep breath and grinned. “Say! You’re pretty good!”

Agatha licked her lips. “Really? I never… ah… so that’s acting? I… I wonder if…” A strained wheeze stopped her, and she glanced sideways at Lars. He was staring fixedly up over her head. “Lars?”

He gripped her arm tightly. “Shhh! Geisterdamen,” he whispered.

Agatha slowly turned to look, then froze in shock. Before them were a pair of gigantic, blue-white furred spiders. Eight long legs hoisted each creature’s body easily six meters up into the air. They wore harnesses and saddles, with packs, gear and weapons strapped behind. Astride each of these monsters was a tall, slender young woman. Moving only her eyes, Agatha glanced back and forth between the two and realized that they were identical. Both had extremely pale skin, long flowing white hair, and the same peculiar outfit of folded and draped fabric. Chillingly, both also had the same wide, pupil-less eyes.

The women were regarding Agatha with interest. Their spiders leaned down until the riders scrutinized her from less than two meters away.

“Twerlik?” The far one was apparently asking a question
²¹
.

The closer one raised a staff and casually pointed it at Agatha. “Su fig?” She responded. She leaned back. “Klibber meeenak seg ni plostok vedik kliz moc twerlik?”

The second rider frowned. “Zo—zo flooda vedik.”

“Botcha hey za vedik moc nodok.”

“Za nedik eve za gwoon.”

“Hic mok?”

The second rider shrugged and indicated the circus’ camp. “Zo—voco cheeb? Kloopa. Obongs. Set ve?” She crossed her arms. “Za ‘actors.’”

This startled the first rider almost as much as it did Lars and Agatha. “
Actors
!”

The second rider made a clicking noise and her spider straightened up and began striding off. The first rider followed suit. Agatha could hear her asking plaintively, “Woge-ze fleepin
bo
‘actors,’ bin?”

This was answered with a derisive, “Yan, do hip za
cheeb
.”

“Hif ni!”

And with that final exchange, the strange women and their giant mounts were swallowed up among the trees.

Lars abruptly sat down on the ground. He looked ill. “I didn’t even hear them coming,” he moaned.

“Who were they?” Agatha asked.

“People call them Geisterdamen. Weißdamen. Spider Riders… all
kinds
of things. They’ve been around for a long time now. They’re always on the move. Nobody knows anything about them, really.” Lars paused before continuing:

“Except—you don’t want to fight them. They’re really dangerous when you do that. Farmers say that they cause revenants, steal children, blight crops…” He took a deep breath and then bounced to his feet and grinned. “Of course, they say the same things about traveling shows, so…”

Agatha was still staring at the opening in the trees where the giant spiders had disappeared. “I’ve never even
heard
of them.”

Lars shrugged. “There’re lots of things hiding in the Wastelands that you townies never hear about.” He looked at Agatha appraisingly. “Want us to drop you off at the next town?”

Agatha looked steadily back at him. “No thanks.”

Several of the other circus members burst into the clearing. “You two okay?” Abner asked.

Lars shook his head. “I swear, Ab, I didn’t even hear them coming!” A thought struck him. “Is Balthazar—?”

Abner waved his hands. “He’s safe.”

Captain Kadiiski, who had insisted that Agatha call him Otto (“As you are obviously a civilian”), took his hat off and wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow. “I hates me those creepy girls,” he confided to Agatha. “You should come with me,” he continued. “A wagon we have now prepared for you.”

This was welcome news. Agatha appreciated Professor Moonsock’s hospitality, but the animal trainer had clearly grown oblivious to the smells of her performers, and seemed to find nothing off-putting about mimmoths nesting in the bread-box.

As she followed Captain Kadiiski away, Abner turned to Lars and asked, “So—Just before the White-eyes turned up—did I hear part of
West Pole
?”

Lars nodded. “Indeed you did. I think we should roll it out for the next town.”

Abner sighed the sigh of a manager who has to deal with persnickety talent. “Put it on the list. There’s a
bunch
I’d like to do, but it’s got a lot of Lucrezia in it, and our
Prima Donna
hates playing Lucrezia.”

Lars nodded, and his head turned toward the receding Agatha. “This may no longer be a problem.”

Abner blinked. “Oh, really? You think she’s that good?” He appraised Agatha’s retreating form with new eyes. “Now I wonder how Pix will react to that?” His evil chuckle was cut off when he realized it would be
his
job to tell her.

Lars punched his shoulder in sympathy. “Go get her, Arlecchino.”

Otto led Agatha through the camp and stopped with an arm grandly outstretched toward a wagon that stood slightly apart from the rest. “So sorry, Agatha, but as you are the new kid, you got to take the old Baba Yaga.”

Agatha, however, was delighted. The contraption before her had a standard wagon body, approximately three meters wide and six long. It was shaped like a miniature Russian dacha, with the addition of a small onion dome jauntily perched atop the curved, peaked roof. The whole exterior was beautifully carved and then meticulously painted in several dozen garish colors. In this at least, it matched the rest of the circus wagons. What set this wagon apart was that, instead of wheels, it stood high above the ground on an enormous set of beautifully detailed mechanical chicken feet.

Agatha had admired it from afar. Until she had joined the circus, she had never seen anything like it, which, considering Adam’s “love of a good challenge,” was a pretty high bar to beat. She had wanted to get a better look at it, but had been too busy—and now it would be hers?

Wonderingly, she reached out and ran her hand over one of the enormous drumsticks. It was covered in individual, gilded metal feathers. Rivet’s head popped out from behind the mechanical claw. She grinned at Agatha. “Oh you’re going to love this.”

Agatha already did
²²
, but her spirits began to droop as Otto and Rivet continued:

“Driving her is the bear,” Otto grunted. “She is a double-clutch Belgian overgear snap-piston system. They never really caught on. Smart girl like you should get it in a month or so. Or you will die in embarrassing stick-shift accident.” Agatha surveyed the tangle of open-gear operating levers. This was an all-too-possible scenario.

“There’s no gyros or shock absorbers to speak of,” Rivet contributed. “She steers like an ox.” She led Agatha toward the back. “She moves well on rough terrain, which means you’ll pull ahead of the rest of the troupe. This is good—” She pointed to a small wood stove set atop the rear bumper, “because you’ll have to stop every twenty minutes to refuel the boiler. If you’re not careful, this will also make you an honorary point rider, which means you’ve got a good possibility of flushing out any beasties that might be lying in wait on the road ahead. So be careful and try not to get too far ahead of the group.”

Otto nodded. “Plus, the roof, she leaks.” He thought for a moment. “Oh yes, and if you do not park her correctly, the left leg piston will start to lose pressure, and she will fall over sometime in the night.” He clapped his hands together. “Boom,” he said glumly.

Agatha looked at him from under lowered brows. “Anything else?”

Otto waved his hand dismissively. “No. I personally am not one of those who believe that it is haunted. That is nonsense, no matter what everyone says.”

Rivet tried to lighten the mood. “The
good
news is that you get to bunk solo.”

Agatha glared at them. “If all that is true, then this thing is a walking disaster area! Why do you even bother to keep it running?”