Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (40 page)

Tarvek paused, and then shrugged modestly. “Yes, well, I
am
The Storm King.”

On the face of it, this was rather analogous to someone admitting that he was the White Rabbit of the Equinox. Agatha decided to treat Prince Tarvek the way that she always treated Professor Rollipod back at the University
⁴⁹
.

“Do tell!” She cooed. “That’s very nice! Would you like some juice, your majesty?”

Tarvek looked at her with a tired annoyance. “Stop it. I don’t think I’m old Andronicus Valois. But I
am
his direct descendant, through my mother, which is why my last name isn’t Valois. The lineage has been guarded and preserved by the Sturmvarous family for ten generations, and if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll make you sit through a recitation of the entire genealogy.”

Agatha couldn’t stop looking at him, but she tried to do so differently. If true, this was astonishing news. There hadn’t been a Storm King for almost two centuries. Occasionally, one appeared in some of the more obscure Heterodyne Plays, but they weren’t popular, if only because too many people found the idea of a new Storm King to be too implausible.

Tarvek continued, eyeing her carefully. “It’s quite the family secret. You can imagine what would happen if it got out. But apparently these two—” he indicated Tinka and Moxana, “—Trust you, so I shall as well.”

Agatha nodded slowly. “I think I know something about having explosive family secrets.” She paused. The memories of what she talked about at dinner were weirdly distorted, but accessible. “That is, if I still have them…”

Tarvek looked embarrassed. “Of course you do. I won’t tell, my sister wants you dead, and no one will believe the servants.”

Agatha analyzed this, and was not completely reassured. Tarvek ran what he’d said through his head and came to a similar conclusion. “A living Heterodyne heir is too important to risk. But even if you weren’t a Heterodyne, I…” He looked at her earnestly. “I’d want to get you as far away from my sister as possible.”

Agatha nodded gratefully. “Won’t there be repercussions from her having… killed your father?”

Tarvek looked uncomfortable. “Quite possibly. It depends how perspicacious the Baron’s Questor
⁵⁰
is, but Anevka can be very…convincing.” Seeing Agatha’s face, he tried to dispel the mood. “But that is not your problem. My father’s unexpected death has placed me under some obligations that I must deal with as soon as possible
⁵¹
.”

Tarvek continued. “Tinka will guide you out of the castle.” He pulled an official looking note from an inner pocket of his coat. “This will insure that you are conveyed safely back to your friends at the circus. My father sent them packing early this morning, but I managed to have them detained outside of the city walls.”

Agatha took the note. “I’d better get there quickly. They’ll be very worried. You won’t have problems with your sister, will you?”

“Will I have problems with my…” Tarvek’s mouth quirked upwards. “You
must
be an only child. My sister will be
furious
, of course. But she requires maintenance, and for that she needs me. She’ll scream and throw things and demand that I let her kill someone, but the servants know to stay away from her at times like that.”

“That’s… good?” Agatha ventured.

Tarvek sighed. “In our household, that’s as good as it gets.” He stared at nothing for a moment, then visibly pulled himself together. Now, when he looked at Agatha, she was struck by the air of authority he displayed. “But by the Law of Succession and the Right of Inheritance, I am the Prince of Sturmhalten now. Protector of Balen’s Gap and Defender of the East. My sister will be controlled. As for you…” He considered Agatha as if he had never seen her before.

Agatha found herself flushing slightly under his scrutiny. Then, to her astonishment, he bowed. “Allow me to be the first to formally acknowledge you as the future Lady Heterodyne. It is my sincere hope, when everything is settled, that you would consider returning to Sturmhalten.”

Agatha’s eyebrows went up. “Returning?”

Tarvek smiled. “Oh yes, with a Heterodyne back in power, we’ll want to strengthen political ties with Mechanicsburg. But more importantly…” Here he faltered at bit and rubbed his neck. How annoying, he was acting like a tongue-tied schoolboy at his first dance. “I… um… I mean I
personally
… I would very much like it if you… came back… here… and wanted to aid me in reconstructing the Muses.”

“Me?” Agatha was startled. “Why me?”

Tarvek gently patted Moxana’s chair. “Moxana claims that you are a very strong Spark. I myself have found you intelligent, personable, quite comely—” Tarvek reddened as he realized what he’d said. “—And unlike my sister, or indeed most of the Sparks I have met, refreshingly sane.” Most of the last of this came out in a bit of a rush.

Agatha regarded the young man. To her surprise, she realized that his recitation of her assets had pleased her excessively. Again she felt a tingle run down her back. Working closely with Prince Sturmvarous could be interesting. Any mechanic with a scrap of curiosity would jump at the chance to work with actual Muses. She frowned. She did have to consider the realities of the household however. There was no question that Anevka was very dangerous. Tarvek seemed to sense her thoughts.

“I’m not saying stay now. In fact, I insist that you get as far away as you can from my sister’s influence for the moment. Give me time to work on her.” He smiled. “You’d only have to come back when
you
thought it was safe. If you’re really worried, I’ll build you a… a death ray or something.”

Agatha went slightly weak at the knees and she had to take a deep breath. “I… I think I might like that,” she said carefully.

Tarvek beamed. “Wonderful!” He gently took Agatha’s elbow. Another tingle ran up her arm from where his hand touched her skin. “But now, I’m afraid, you must be going, and I have things that must be done.”

Agatha took a step towards the door and then stopped. “Wait! What about the Geisterdamen?”

Tarvek frowned. “What about them?”

Agatha paused, unsure how much she wanted to reveal. She spoke carefully. “They claimed to…” Oh dear. How awkward. The word “worship,” while accurate, would no doubt lead to a very complicated discussion. A discussion Agatha realized that she would have to have, but possibly, not when she should be fleeing for her life from a mechanical homicidal maniac. “…know my mother.”

Tarvek frowned. “Yesss… I had heard a
little
about that, but I never really paid attention…” He looked at Agatha. “If Lucrezia Heterodyne was your mother…” He blinked. “Good lord. You must be this… child person they’re always going on about. Fascinating.” He pondered this for a second, and then forcibly shook himself, and again took Agatha’s elbow. “Rest assured that I’ll take good care of them. I’ll definitely try to find out a bit more about this… mythology they’ve built up. But now you really
must
be going!”

Agatha saw the sense in this, and soon Tinka was leading her through the now gloomy corridors of the castle. Tinka carried an ornate hand-cranked electric candelabra, that served more to distort the shadows and keep Agatha on edge than light their way. She tried to make conversation.

“It’s so quiet,” she whispered. “Where is everybody?”

“Most of the ser-servants are con-confined to the servant wing-ing-ing. The old P-P-Prince is dead. There are… pro… pro… procedures that must be observed. Tinka continued. “Prince Tarvek will take care of it. All will be well-ell-ell.”

Agatha had her doubts about the simplicity that Tinka seemed to take for granted. “I really think it’s a good thing that I’m leaving.”

“Our Prince agrees.” Tinka nodded and her head fell off. Her body took another step, froze, and then toppled forward to the carpet. Agatha gave a small scream of surprise.

From a shadowed alcove, the three Geisterdamen stepped forth, Eotain casually wiped her blade clean on the curtain. “Forgive us for taking so long to find you,” Vrin said with a slight smile.

The three didn’t look like they were going to attack her. Agatha pointed at the Muse’s head. The eyes blinked frantically. “You didn’t have to do that.” She looked at them again. “How did you get out?”

“Thanks to you.” Vrin brought her hand out into the light. Agatha’s small pocket-watch clank cheerfully waved the lock pick when it saw her. “Your little automunculous apparently went down the drain, climbed back up outside the cell door, and opened it from without.”

Agatha felt odd. “Oh good,” she said weakly. “It worked.”

Meanwhile Shrdlu had picked up Tinka’s head and brought it to Vrin. Tinka’s eyes were still blinking, and the mouth moved. Faintly, her voice could still be heard. “Miz-zirk—no—no—get away—zt! Now! Clax—!”

Vrin casually dropped the head to the floor. Agatha winced. “Where was this thing taking you?”

Agatha saw no reason to lie. “Out of the castle. Prince Tarvek wants me gone before the Baron sends someone to investigate his father’s death.” She paused. “He said he was going to take care of you too.”

Vrin looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Oh, I can well imagine that he would have ‘taken care of us.’” She nodded. “He is certainly correct about one thing. If The Wulfenbach Empire will be interfering here, then we must hurry.” She turned away. “Come with us.”

Agatha didn’t move. “I hate to leave Tinka like this—”

Vrin cut her off with an impatient wave of her hand. “You must leave with us.” She paused and visibly forced herself to be a bit less autocratic. “This is but a mechanism. We have permanently damaged nothing. It was already broken, and this is but another minor repair that Prince Tarvek can easily perform. You are the one that is in danger now, and I assure you, child, your safety is our chief concern.”

Agatha saw the logic in this, and so the four headed off. “This isn’t the way we were going,” Agatha quickly pointed out.

Vrin snorted, but didn’t slow down. “Sturmhalten Castle is not so much a castle, as a structure that contains secret passages. I don’t know where the
tik tik
was taking you, but I know where we must go now.”

Agatha followed for a moment, then asked, “So the late Prince Aaronev was a follower of… your Lady?”

Vrin frowned. “Supposedly. To hear him tell it, in his youth, they were… romantically involved.” She shrugged, “Or so he claimed. Our Lady never deigned to verify it, one way or the other. But in fairness, he always spoke of her with the proper reverence.” She was again silent, but Agatha could see that this was a topic she felt strongly about, and indeed, she shortly continued.

“But this entire family—” she shook her head. “All of them are as twisted and duplicitous as a sack of oiled snakes. One can never trust anything they say, even when they are speaking an obvious truth.
I
believe that Aaronev secretly hoped to learn how to use The Lady’s
shk-mah
for his own ends!”

She eyed Agatha expectantly, and seemed disappointed that this revelation had less impact on her than Vrin had expected.

“Ah,” Agatha said. “Her
Shik Whatzis
, you say. The impudence.”

Vrin glowered at her. “I believe the
ignorant
call them Slaver Wasps.”

Agatha stumbled, and only avoided slamming to the ground face-first because Eotain and Shrdlu grabbed her arms without breaking stride.

Agatha dug her heels in and dragged the whole group to a halt. “My mother was The
Other
?”

Vrin looked surprised. “You didn’t know?” She nodded. “Oh. Well, yes. Lucrezia Mongfish was the being known to The Shadow World as The Other.” She said this as if it as common knowledge
⁵²
.

This time Agatha did stop. “No! I can’t believe it! The Other was responsible for the revenants. The death of… of thousands! All the destruction—!”

The Geisterdamnen circled her, and looked at each other in confusion. Agatha ignored them. “But wait—” She reviewed her histories. “No—The Other attacked Castle Heterodyne and
kidnapped
Lucrezia Heterodyne. That’s how the whole thing
started!”

Vrin gently clasped Agatha’s hand and pulled her down the hall. “Really? How interesting.”

Agatha’s head was so a-whirl with this latest revelation that it was several moments before she was again aware enough to take stock of her surroundings. The room the party was now half way through was large and dimly lit.

“This looks familiar…”

Vrin interrupted. “It is the castle chapel. We do much of our work here.”

Agatha shuddered as she remembered what had happened the last time she was here. “And what is it
you
do?”

Suddenly the three white ladies turned on her and forced her down into what Agatha realized was the same device that Prince Aaronev had strapped her into earlier that evening. She protested and thrashed mightily as she was buckled in. Vrin stood before a control panel. “We do what we always do. We serve the Goddess!” And she threw the switch.

A great cloud of electricity erupted around Agatha, enveloping the chair and its occupant. She felt a tingling dancing across her flesh for several seconds, and then, from behind her, the apparatus she was strapped into began to roar and vibrate. There was a great final scream of tortured machinery—and then only the sound of turbines winding down. Everywhere lights changed from red to green, and relays could be heard clacking down in sequence.

Agatha opened one eye. Nothing. She looked at herself. Nothing had changed. She looked around. She was still in the chapel. She was beginning to think it had all been some sort of pointless joke when she saw the three Geisterdamen. They were standing reverently, heads bowed, eyes closed, their hands intricately folded before their chests. Praying, Agatha realized. Next to them was a clock-like device. Its single hand was sweeping backwards and just as Agatha figured this all out, the hand hit zero. A great organ note boomed forth as a fresh wave of power cascaded down the device and poured directly into Agatha. Her head slammed back and she screamed as the energies swirled around her.