As Zog chuckled, Goomblast stepped up and made a formal bow. “Hokay, Meester Boris, maybe ve do dis hyu vay.”
Boris let out a sigh of relief. “Excellent.”
Goomblast held up a delicate finger. “Eef hyu agrees to certain trade concessions ve is gun discuss now.”
Sweat broke out on Boris’s forehead. Still, it could have been a lot worse—
A voice rang out from behind the group. “Sirs, if you agree to this, the Lady Heterodyne will die.”
Everyone spun about to see a tall, jaunty man sitting in the window. Boris started to his feet, unwelcome recognition obviously showing on his face.
The man in the window continued. “Do forgive me for letting myself in, generals. I am Ardsley Wooster. You might recognize me as Gilgamesh Wulfenbach’s manservant, but in actuality, I am an agent of British Intelligence!”
General Goomblast impatiently waved a hand. “Yez, yez, efferbody knew dot. Now vat vos dot about de Lady Heterodyne?”
Wooster sighed. Apparently, his secret had been safe . . . with everyone. Oh well. “I regret to say that Herr Dolokhov is not playing straight with you.”
Boris gave a desperate shout and tried to leap forward, but was easily kept in check by one of Khrizhan’s large hands. “Keep talking, Herr Wooster.”
Wooster nodded. “What he isn’t telling you is that, if you stand by and do nothing, there won’t be a Mechanicsburg to return to. The Baron plans to destroy the Castle and your Lady Heterodyne.”
Khrizhan stepped forward. “Dis is a serious charge.”
From inside his leather coat, Wooster produced a thick oilskin courier packet. He tossed it to the general. “Here are orders. Troop movements and instructions for the attack and its aftermath.”
Khrizhan snapped open the packet and began flipping through the papers within. Suddenly he paused, then began to scowl as he flipped faster. Within seconds, papers were blizzarding throughout the room as he screamed in rage.
Boris broke free and advanced, fists balled in rage. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Wooster leaned back out the window and grabbed a rope that was hanging beside him. “Destabilized Britain’s greatest rival and aided an innocent girl,” he replied smugly. “A mighty good day’s work, I’d say.”
Boris screamed in frustration. “She’s not innocent, you dupe! She’s the Other!”
Wooster looked serious. “I believe you’re wrong, but if she is, then rest assured that Her Majesty will take an interest.”
“You damned spy,” Boris screamed. “I’ll kill you!” But as he leapt forward, Wooster simply fell backwards into the open sky. Everyone rushed to the window and peered downward in time to see Wooster pull a small personal flight unit from inside his coat. It was too small to actually fly anywhere, but the British agent was now in a controlled fall that was taking him back towards the town below. A last faint “dosvedanya” wafted upwards.
As Boris stared at the receding figure, a large hand fell on his shoulder. A great feeling of peace washed over Boris. He really had done his best. He closed his eyes and wished his coat was not ripped. “All right,” He said evenly, “Fine. If you’re going to kill me, just do it quickly.”
There was a pause. Then, to his surprise, a second hand grasped, lifted, and turned him around until he faced the trio of menacing monsters who regarded him from troubled faces. Zog nodded. “Perhaps. But first . . . ” He gently set Boris down onto his feet. “First hyu weel tell uz about Meez Agatha and de Other. Ve iz listening.”
CHAPTER 2
One would think that sparks—being on the whole, psychotic megalomaniacs with little regard for human life and poor impulse control—would have no friends or indeed any use for people. Quite often they believe this themselves, and can often be heard making dramatic statements to this effect. The reason these diatribes are heard by more than just the occasional potted plant or captured hero is this: sparks quite frequently find themselves surrounded by people whether they want to be or not. We are not just talking about the stereotypical traveler whose cart breaks down during a storm and thus must seek shelter at the lone castle glimpsed through the trees and so finds himself at a timely ringside seat for the revelation of the latest abomination of science (although there is no denying this happens far more than is statistically probable). No, your seriously steeped-in-madness dabbler in the esoteric sciences usually finds themself taxed with a rag-tag collection of hangers-on, typically consisting of minions, constructs, adventurers, and those unique, unclassifiable, individuals whose raison d’être appears to be to remind us of what a strange world it is. Even more interestingly, it appears that the greater the spark, the more of these individuals they spontaneously accumulate.
Philosophers and other underemployed persons have theorized this is a natural phenomenon, and is simply “Nature’s Way” of trying to insulate the world from the direct effects of sparks by constantly distracting them. The argument goes that if they were left alone to their own devices (so to speak), they would soon reduce all of human existence to naught but mathematical formulae, and I do not believe that I am speaking figuratively. This theory goes a long way towards explaining the enormous collection of odd persons that have, over time, accreted around Baron Klaus Wulfenbach.
Those who believe this phenomenon does represent some sort of cosmic defense mechanism, and that the greater the spark, the greater the number of distracting persons required to prevent them from bringing about Armageddon, noted with trepidation the number, quality, and sheer strangeness of the people that had already begun to fall into the orbit of the young Lady Heterodyne less than a week after she had publicly revealed herself in Sturmhalten and became known to Europa as a whole. From this, they had drawn rather alarming conclusions. All of which, it turned out, seriously underestimated the events to come.
—An excerpt from the Introduction to Professor Thaddeus Brinstine’s What the Hell Was That? Trying to Understand The Legacy of the Long Wars (Transylvania Polygnostic University Press)
Airman Higgs reached out and grasped a mildewing set of draperies. These disintegrated into tatters with a firm tug, allowing a wan, dust-filled shaft of light to illuminate the hallway. The doors that punctuated the walls were more elaborately carved than any others they had seen in the Castle, and some effort had been made to soften the usual style of decor they had found throughout the rest of the building. Oh, there was still a plethora of fanged monstrosities threatening hapless humans, but here, at least, everybody involved seemed unnaturally cheerful. Higgs nodded in satisfaction. “I’m betting this is where we need to be.”
The others looked at each other in confusion. Zeetha glanced out the window. “But we haven’t gone down anywhere near far enough. We’re still above ground.”
Sleipnir had opened the nearest door and peeked inside. “These look like they’re all bedrooms. Pretty fancy ones too.” She raised an eyebrow sardonically. “Read your ‘map’ wrong?”
Higgs regarded them blankly. Then he gave a slight sigh. “Thought you folks were smart.” He started walking. “The Castle told Herr von Zinzer here that the Great Movement Chamber was so secret that even the Heterodyne Boys never knew about it. But Miss Agatha found the Lady Lucrezia’s secret lab in a set of small rooms hidden underneath it.” He pulled his pipe from his pocket and gave it a ruminative suck. “Sparks are like balloon bees.10 They like to spread out to fill as much space as they can. If the Lady Lucrezia was set up in those small rooms, it’s because she didn’t know about, or couldn’t get to the larger room right overhead.”