Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (48 page)

“We will proceed to the home of my loyal friends, Lord and Lady Selnikov. They have long harbored fears of what would happen to the town were my brother to gain total control. I will be safe with them, and from there I will be able to secure you supplies and guides will be able to get you safely through the sewers, into the castle, and lead you to the controls for the lightning moat.”

“What about you?” the annoyingly smart cat asked.

Luckily, here she was back to the original plan. “I will rally the town and the army. When the moat comes down, we will take the castle. This evil must stop.”

The cat stared at her. “The Baron is sending a Questor. Once he sees what’s going on here, he’ll send a fleet. Why fool around with storming the castle yourselves?”

When this was all over, she really hoped this creature was still alive. She’d keep it in a cage, poke it with sticks, and bring it to all of the planning sessions.

“The last thing I want is the Baron thinking that I cannot administer this town on my own. If I crush this rebellion myself, he has no cause to usurp my right to rule.”

Krosp nodded and to Anevka’s surprise, looked relieved. She realized that the cat, at least, must know that Agatha had no wish to encounter the Baron or his representatives.

Lars spoke up. “It’ll all boil down to partisan loyalties then. Are you sure that the townspeople and the army will rally to you instead of your brother?”

Anevka gently touched her newly re-tuned voicebox. “Oh yes. Everyone in Balan’s Gap
will
do what I say.”

Several minutes later, one of Lord Selnikov’s under-cooks was stumbling towards the back door of the kitchens. Before he got there, another set of blows landed on the far side, rattling the dishes.

All right! All right!” he shouted. “Keep your hair on!” Grumbling mightily, he threw the great deadbolt, and heaved on the iron-bound door. “You must be new,” he said as the door groaned open. “We don’t accept deliveries before—”

The heavy door pushed into him and he stumbled back with an oath. Furious, he grabbed a broom and turned back to find a monstrous, green face leering at him from scant centimeters away.

“Bot dis iz a
very
special delivery!”

A jolt of fear surged through him as a crowd of people pushed into the kitchen. One of them called out, “Hey! Dere’s food!” —And instantly, most of them fell upon the remains of last night’s banquet. The under-cook was aghast, if only because, by tradition, this was the morning staff’s breakfast that was being devoured before his eyes, and he knew who was going to get blamed for it. He raised the broom—

“Stop!” A tall girl with green hair snagged his sleeve. “I’d step back, if I were you. Those are Jägermonsters and animals eating there.” Krosp waved his paw in acknowledgement. “How smart do you think it would be to get between them and food?”

The under-cook paused, remembering the face at the door. It was said that if you interrupted a Jäger at dinner, you’d be the dessert.

He saw Lars industriously carving himself a slice of roast swan. “Hey! What about that guy?”

“He’s an actor.”

This, the under-cook knew how to deal with. “I’d better go hide the silver.”

He turned to go and found himself face-to-face with a bemused Princess Anevka, who was supervising her bearers as they gingerly edged her catafalque through the smaller doorway. In his panic, he executed a perfect curtsy. “Forgive me, your Highness!”

Genially, she waved aside his apologies. “It’s quite all right, my good fellow. It’s been awhile since
I
wasn’t the strangest thing in the room. Now fetch your master.”

With a quick bow, the under-cook took off like a shot.

Less than three minutes later, a very stout man clad in a lavish, ermine-trimmed dressing gown burst, huffing, into the kitchen.

He had been quite muscular once, and there was still some evidence of this under the fat that now swaddled his frame. He had a small dapper moustache that was sadly out of place on the broad, square face. His features revealed that he was obviously related to the Royal family from somewhere in the not-too-distant past. “Princess Anevka!” he gasped upon seeing her and her entourage. “It
is
you! Are you all right?”

The Princess shut the recipe book she’d been idly thumbing through, and tilted her head in amusement. “Quite well. Especially now that you are with me in all of your sartorial glory, Lord Selnikov.”

The older man glared at her as he straightened his outfit. “Some of us were a bit rushed this morning.”

“My apologies. But there has been a small shakeup in our plans.” She took his sleeve and headed for the door. To the others she said. “Eat up, my friends, I must bring his Lordship here up to speed.”

Lord Selnikov now saw what was depleting his larders (as the remains of the banquet had been quickly disposed of) and his protests and demands to know who and what those filthy creatures were, easily kept Anevka from having to say anything until they reached his Lordship’s private study, at which point she forcefully told him to shut up. He did.

“Last night my father found an actress with vocal harmonics identical to those we’ve been trying to duplicate.”

Selnikov sat down in surprise. His mind considered the possibilities.

“She controlled an entire theatre full of people. They responded just as though she were The Other. Once we had her, Tarvek was able to adjust my voice to match hers, perfectly.”

“Astonishing.” He thought for a moment. “And the effect upon the Lady Vrin and her people?” His Lordship may have looked like a carousing oaf, but he still had a sharp mind, when he was goaded into using it.

“Alas, my voice alone is not enough to control Vrin, and the effect on the ordinary priestesses leaves much to be desired.”

Selnikov frowned, and pulled the head off of a stuffed hawk with a “pop,” revealing the mouth of a bottle. He poured himself a large dollop of brandy. “That’s inconvenient,” he muttered before emptying half the glass with one swallow.

“Indeed, but there was no time to investigate the problem, as I barely escaped with my life.”

Selnikov started. “What?”

“The Lady Vrin has decided that this girl is, in fact, their lost Holy Child, and thus my vocal experiments were, in effect, blasphemy. She was very touchy about it.”

“What about your father? Surely he could talk—”

Anevka stared at him and then slammed her hand down upon the desk. “My father is dead! I cannot
believe
you are unaware of this! The town has been in mourning for hours!”

Selnikov reddened. “I was busy. Until quite late in the evening. I left orders that I was not be disturbed for any reason.” The look on his face said that he regretted that particular order now.

Anevka considered him. “That’s right, dear
Lady
Selnikov is in Paris, isn’t she? Well I hope you enjoyed your little dalliance, and you’re damned lucky that you weren’t required.”

Selnikov glowered, and took another drink. “Your brother?” he asked brusquely.

“My brother has denounced me to the Geisterdamen loudly and extensively. He ordered the guards to catch me, and immediately pledged fealty to this Holy Child and The Lady. He even shot at me as I was escaping.”

Selnikov stared at her. “Good Lord.”

Anevka nodded with a touch of pride. “Yes, he was
very
convincing. They will trust him. He will do his work, as we will do ours, and everything will work out beautifully.”

She glanced out the window, and saw that the eastern sky was beginning to glow with the pre-dawn. “But now I
must
insist upon a change of clothes. It simply will not
do
to topple the Empire in our pajamas.”

Several hours later, Prince Tarvek stumbled into the lab that now housed Moxana, as well as the deactivated Tinka. He collapsed into a chair and gazed at her in exhaustion. “Sweet lightning,” he confessed to her, “That woman is going to
kill
me! I’ve
got
to get some sleep.” He waved a hand. “She only stopped working because I refused her more stimulant. I… I’m worried it might damage her—well… that body.” He paused, and shook his head in despair. “I don’t even know if Agatha is still in there. I haven’t seen her for hours, and Lucrezia’s control of the body seems to be absolute. The machine she’s working on is almost finished.”

He scowled. “This will be trouble. The actual Lady Lucrezia is too much of a wild card. I probably should have killed her when I had the chance, but this opportunity was just too…”

He looked at the implacable face of The Muse. “This
will
work—won’t it?”

Smoothly, the seated figure fanned out a large deck of cards face down, and gestured to Tarvek that he was to select one. Tarvek gingerly picked a card. He turned and examined it, a frown crossing his face. The picture showed a glowing funnel cloud bearing down on, or possibly being generated by, an intricate little device of unknown function. The number at the top read “XXX.”

“
The Whirlwind
,” he said flatly. “‘Great power at great risk.’ Or alternatively, ‘beware of things underground.’ Or possibly, ‘expect an unexpected friend.’ Or even ‘learn a new piece of music.’” He flipped the card back onto Moxana’s board with a sigh. “Thank you, oh Muse of Mystery.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I suppose I’ll just have to…”

He paused, as faint strains of… was that music? It
was
music, of a sort, and it was getting louder—or closer…

This latter proved to be the correct guess, as around the corner came a flowing tide of light. It was a horde of tiny machines. Tarvek realized that they looked similar to the small clank Agatha had worked on.

They were all producing a soft orange glow, and they were all humming a variant of the weird atonal melody that he had last heard from Agatha herself. And now, at the crest of the tide of machines, Agatha herself appeared. Her feet hidden by the adoring devices. To the electrified Tarvek, she appeared to be gliding towards him upon a seething river of light. Somehow, he could instantly tell that this was in fact Agatha, and not Lucrezia. With that realization, he tore his eyes away from her and focused on the machines at her feet.

“Your little clanks,” he breathed, “They’re reproducing the heterodyning music. Brilliant!” He listened briefly. Tarvek considered himself a rather good musician, and he realized—“The music is a little off from the stuff you produce yourself. Understandable, of course, but the effect upon your mind must be—”

Agatha’s hands whipped out and Tarvek found himself caught up, his face centimeters from hers. Up close he could see that she was under considerable strain. Sweat was pouring down her face, and the pupils of her eyes were reduced to pinpoints.

“She’s winning,” Agatha rasped in a guttural voice. “I need your lab.”

“Yes!” Tarvek gasped. “Yes! Of course!” He succeeded in pulling himself free of Agatha’s grasp. “What are you going to do?”

She looked at him bleakly. “The only thing I
can
do.”

Meanwhile, Agatha’s rescuers found themselves trudging through the sewers of Sturmhalten for yet a third time. Their situation was improved however, in that this time, they had been supplied with guides, a pair of dour plumbers, who reluctantly admitted to knowing the sewers “as well as anyone.”

They were also accompanied by one Herr Veilchen, who freely admitted to being an assassin in the employ of the Royal Family. The only ones who didn’t feel nervous around him were the Jägers, who cheerfully tried to engage him in technical discussions about the best way to kill people in increasingly bizarre situations.

“I cannot believe how big these damn sewers are,” Krosp groused for possibly the hundredth time. “The town isn’t
that
big.”

“You gotta remember,” Sturvin, the first plumber said, “Balan’s Gap used to be bigger. This is where the Western Coalition managed to hold back the old Heterodynes. There were a lot of armies bivouacked here for almost a decade before the Storm King whipped everyone into shape. The only reason the whole thing held together was because they had a proper sewage system.” You could tell that this was a man who believed that his field of specialization was single-handedly responsible for dragging mankind down from the trees. In this case, perhaps a bit too
far
down, but you still had to admire his enthusiasm.

Lars carefully stepped over a bubbling green puddle. “So how did you two get to be such experts on the secret passages down here?”

Sturvin snorted. “We’ve worked down here for twenty-seven years, man.”

The shorter plumber, Kalikoff, joined in. “When you’re being chased and you need a place to hide, you learn what to look for.”

Lars looked uneasy. “Chased? By what?”

“Duh—the usual. Giant cockroaches. Sewer serpents. Ghouls. It’s a
sewer
. With tunnels connecting to the
catacombs
. What do you expect?”

Lars shivered. “Most sewers don’t have any of that stuff.”

Sturvin blinked in surprise. “What?”

Kalikoff looked at Lars skeptically. “Really? No albino squid?”

“No!”

The small man frowned. “How about rats? Everybody’s
gotta
have them giant glowing rats.”

Lars shook his head. “No. Little rats. Sixty centimeters. Tops.”

The two plumbers looked at each other. Sturvin frowned. “That is one messed up ecosystem, man.”

Kalikoff shook his head in agreement. “So in these other sewers—if they don’t have this stuff, what do the
big
monsters eat?”

“What am I
doing
in here?” Lars screamed.

Zeetha patted him on the arm. “You’re here to rescue Agatha, hero.”

Lars closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Right! Yes! Agatha! Beautiful girl held captive by depraved prince. Yes. Third act. Curtain going up.” He took another breath and smiled at Zeetha. “Okay, I’m good.” Krosp rolled his eyes.

Maxim turned to Herr Veilchen. “Hyu know de layout uv der kestle. Vere do dey keep all dere beautiful gurl captives?”

The assassin considered this. “Yes, of course, you’ll want to rescue your friend first. I should have expected that. My priority is the shutting down of the lightning moat, but I don’t see a conflict. Once we get inside, I will direct you to the dungeons, and then proceed on my own.”