Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

“And they are superb!” You could actually hear spaces between Agatha’s words now. Herr Mitrant made a grab for the wrench she was examining. Agatha let him grab the wrench, but he suddenly felt his wrist clasped in a grip like iron. “You can tell a craftsman’s abilities by his tools, and yours speak well of you. Show me your skill!” She pointed to the defunct coffee engine. “Disassemble those boilers!”

Herr Mitrant opened his mouth, a look of offended rage on his face—

“When we rebuild them, they’ll go from cold to boil in eight seconds!”

The man paused. “Eight seconds? You can do that?”

Agatha grinned. “It’ll be fun!”

An odd look crossed the man’s face, and finally, with a jaunty “At once, Mistress!” he was off.

Carson nodded grimly. “That’s right, boy, anyone.”

Krosp opened one of the small packs that Zeetha had been carrying and began pulling out his coat. Obviously, he felt the time for subterfuge had passed. “I get it. A whole town of minions waiting for a Master.”

The old man slumped into his seat and took a pull from his mug of coffee. The look he gave it made it clear that he had hoped for something stronger. “Pretty much,” he acknowledged. “And one of our jobs is to keep outsiders from realizing that.”

Vanamonde leaned in. “Grandfather,” he said seriously, “this is getting out of hand.”

The group at the table looked up. Everyone in the café was busy now. Patrons were clearing an area—shoving aside tables and chairs. Several of the shop staff were running back and forth from the storeroom in the back, presenting Agatha with a bizarre array of items for consideration. More worrying was the procession dashing in and out of the front door, bringing back tools, equipment and… more people.

A glassblower was dragged in, protesting vehemently—until Agatha showed him some hastily scrawled plans. Minutes later, assistants were hauling in armloads of glass tubes and rods and an oxyacetylene torch sputtered to life.

With a clang, a coppersmith dropped a load of brewing kettles on the floor. Carson and Vanamonde recognized shop assistants from nearby grocers and chemists. With a smell of ozone, old Staikov, the electrician, showed up with a double bandolier-load of battery jars.

The waitresses were moving constantly, serving coffee and snacks to the various workers, and the roar of conversation was taking on the same sort of coordinated hum one occasionally hears from well-organized beehives.

At the center of it, seemingly everywhere at once, was Agatha: exhorting, explaining, diagramming, praising, and then moving on to the next group. She paused and caught the eye of one of the waitresses. “Say, could I get another cup of that coffee?”

Carson and Vanamonde screamed in unison. “NO!”

Agatha considered them briefly and then, with a nod, moved on.

Suddenly, magically, there was an empty space in the center of the shop, materials neatly radiating outwards—every section overseen by a cluster of eager helpers. Agatha stood in the center, then spun about slowly, examining where everything was. She nodded once, selected a wrench, and began to build.

Watching Sparks as they work—apparently warping the laws of physics as they go—can be difficult for most sane, sober people to watch. With a wince, Zeetha turned away with a troubled look on her face. She buttonholed the elder von Mekkhan.

“This—” She waved a hand, to take in the entranced crowd of townspeople assisting Agatha. “Tell me this isn’t some kind of…of mind control? You know, like slaver wasps?”

Carson snorted grimly. “You do the Masters a disservice. They didn’t need slapped-together filth like the wasps to inspire the townspeople. Control like this is crafted over time. You are seeing the end result of generations of effort.

“For close to a thousand years, the people of Mechanicsburg have served the House of Heterodyne, the most depraved, unstable, crazed maniacs in the world, and in return, they shaped us.

“As long as we pleased the Masters, life was good. Mechanicsburg was the Heterodyne’s home from which they would sweep out and periodically despoil half of Europa.”

The old man waved his hands as if to encompass the entire town. “I don’t know how good an eye for geography you have, my dear, but we are uniquely protected here by our mountains and our chasms. No one has ever managed to take Mechanicsburg by force, although certainly many, many powers have tried. The Masters wouldn’t allow it.”