Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (55 page)

Tarvek came around and looked Anevka in the eyes. Tears rolled down his face. “I’m not lying,” he said gently. “I am… I was very fond of my sister…” He gulped and took a deep breath. “I want you to know, that my father was not the only one who was comforted by your presence.”

When Anevka spoke again, it was as if her voice was coming from a great distance. “I… I’m not… Anevka? Not your sister?”

Tarvek gently patted her cheek. “No.”

“Then…” Her voice was faint now. “What am I?”

Tarvek’s jaw firmed up. “A very good first try.” His hand slid back around her head and flipped a small switch. “Goodbye, Anevka.”

There was a burst of static from her voice speaker, and the light in her eyes faded out.

Tarvek slid to the floor and for several minutes, the young man was racked with sobs. Suddenly, he gave a final great sniff, and his crying stopped. “That…” he muttered shakily, “Was harder than I thought it would be.”

He then rubbed his eyes, stood back up, and got to work. He had a plan.

CHAPTER 12

One day The Baron was out a-walking, when by the side of the road, he found two injured constructs.

They possessed the faces and torsos of beautiful women, and the bodies of deadly serpents.

“Help us, kind sir,” the creatures begged.

“Of course,” said The Baron. He took them to his castle, and patiently nursed them back to health.

And when they both were once again sleek and strong, the first one bit him with her deadly, poisonous fangs.

“Why did you do that?” screamed the second construct. “He helped us!”

The first construct shrugged. “He shouldn’t be surprised. He knew that we were monsters when he took us in.”

“But we don’t have to act like monsters,” said the second. “I have chosen not to!”

“And that,” said The Baron to the second construct as he revealed the armor beneath his clothing and drew forth his terrible sword, “Is why you will live.”

—A Tale of the Baron/collected in the town of
Buhuși, Romania

W
ith a twist and a snap, Tarvek removed Anevka’s head from her body. Tenderly, he placed it in a small cabinet. “Sleep well, Anevka,” he whispered as he shut the cabinet door.

He then pulled out various tools and reconnected the hoses that Lucrezia had sliced free. When the catafalque was reconnected, he pulled a small key from an inner pocket and unlocked a metal canister that had sat, unnoticed, upon one of the room’s shelves. The lid slid back into itself, and another clank head blinked in the light, and looked up at Tarvek with a grin.

This face was slightly different from Anevka’s. It was more expressive, and Tarvek knew that it would take some getting used to. He reached in and pulled the head out. “Hello, Lucrezia,” he said.

Privately, Tarvek had any number of reservations about this. He had been rather stunned when Lucrezia had explained that the Summoning Engine didn’t transport a personality from some distant location, it received a personality blueprint, as it were, and built a new copy onto an existing brain. Theoretically, any number of additional Lucrezias could be thus created.

Overlaying a new mind upon an established personality was quite difficult. Lucrezia had designed the device to imprint upon her young daughter, which went a long way towards explaining why all the other girls who had been collected by the Geisterdamen over the years, had failed to survive.

However, now that Lucrezia was here, she had demonstrated that it was the but work of mere minutes to recalibrate the device so that it would be able to download a new version of her personality into any girl at all.

Reconstructing a human mind onto a clank’s cognitive engine had seemed like an insurmountable challenge to Tarvek, but Lucrezia had breezily claimed that she had prior experience transferring organic intellects to mechanical systems and visa versa. This disquieting claim was only made more so when she had demonstrated how easy it was for her to do, once Tarvek had constructed a new, untuned clank head.

The implications of this, and the realization that she had obviously already performed these experiments, had given Tarvek serious nightmares the few times he had managed to grab some desperately needed sleep.

The head in his hand smiled. “Tarvek, dear boy! I was beginning to think something had gone wrong.”

“Sorry. Perhaps I should have put a clock in with you. You know, like a puppy.”

“Father raised Sparkhunds
⁷⁰
.” Lucrezia replied conversationally. “They tended to eat clocks. We lost Auntie Skullchula’s favorite grandfather clock that way.”

Tarvek changed the subject. “This face is far more expressive than the last clank face. Some of my best work, really.”

“Not
too
much better, I trust,” Lucrezia said with a frown. “We don’t want people to notice.”

Tarvek smiled reassuringly. “You change your wigs, why not your face?” A thought occurred to him. “Actually, you could tell the townspeople this is how your face
always
was, and that’s what they’d tell anyone who asked.”

Lucrezia laughed in delight. “Oh, this
will
be easy! Now where is my sister?”

Tarvek tucked the head under his arm and threaded his way through the sprawled bodies on the floor. “She’s knocked out, but she’ll be fine.”

Lucrezia’s eyes darted about trying to see everything. Tarvek paused, and slowly spun about, letting her see the entire room. “Heavens,” she remarked. “I seem to have missed quite the party.”

They arrived at the frozen clank, and Tarvek quickly slotted the head onto the neck. “Nonsense,” he said, as he grabbed the head and gave it a final twist, snapping it into place. “The
real
party is just about to start!”

The reintegrated Lucrezia clank gave a shudder, and she stepped forward. She raised her hands, patted her head, and gingerly rotated it about. “That felt most peculiar,” she declared.

Tarvek turned away to get her wig. “Does everything work? Fingers? Toes?”

A sharp pinch upon his fundament caused him to whoop and leap upwards in surprise. When he spun about, Lucrezia regarded him innocently.

“I appear to have delicate motor control,” she reported, while waggling her fingers.

“That almost makes up for your lack of overall control,” he retorted.

Lucrezia stepped forward to retrieve the wig that had fallen to the ground and found herself pulled up short by the hoses connecting her to the catafalque.

She turned back to Tarvek. “Do I actually need this thing? It’s most inconvenient.”

Tarvek swallowed the lump in his throat. “No,” He said huskily, “No you don’t. But too many people outside of Sturmhalten know about it. In my opinion, we should keep it around until things die down, then we can come up with some story.”

Lucrezia nodded slowly. “Yes, too many astonishing things at once would look suspicious.” She looked over at the bearers stretched out upon the floor.

“That one doesn’t look at all well.”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh, yes, that would do it.”

“A little surprise from your sister, when
my
sister proved a bit recalcitrant.”

Lucrezia examined the wound and nodded. “Well, I do so love surprises.”

Tarvek jerked a thumb over to the door. “There’s a group of townspeople waiting outside. You can choose one of them to replace him. But we’d best get moving, they won’t wait forever.”

Lucrezia placed the wig on her head and delicately tucked it into place. “They will if I
tell
them to,” she muttered. She turned about and allowed Tarvek to buckle the coat on around her hoses. “But you’re right of course. The Baron’s man won’t.”

She turned a delivered nudge with her foot to the back of the Lucrezia’s head. “Wake up this instant, you
lazy
girl!”

Lucrezia’s eyes blinked open and she dragged herself to a sitting position. Tarvek graciously helped her to her feet. She wobbled a bit, and then saw the clank examining her. “Lucrezia?”

The clank leaned in. “Lucrezia?” The two then blinked their eyes at each other in a swift pattern that Tarvek failed to follow.

A mutual recognition code
, he realized. Lucrezia
had
planned ahead.

Lucrezia/Agatha clapped her hands in delight. “It
worked!
”

The mechanical Lucrezia nodded. “Of course!”

The two then hugged each other and gave a squeal of pure delight. “We’re going to win!” They sang out.

“Mistress?” All three of them turned to see a shaken Vrin staring at the two women in astonishment.

Lucrezia/Agatha sighed. “Yes, Vrin. Oh, do close your mouth dear, it’s unbecoming. I
did
try to explain this to you.
Both
of us are your mistress, now. You are to obey us both. Do you understand?”

With more assurance than she obviously felt, Vrin nodded once.

Lucrezia/Agatha continued. “Now, Vrin, Prince Tarvek, you, and the rest of your sisters will leave with me through the tunnels. As far as the rest of Europa is concerned, we were never here. We will catch up to the others, establish a new base, reassemble my machines, and get to work.”

Mechanical Lucrezia continued. “I shall stay here. Everyone will think me the Princess Anevka, who has just rescued the town and driven off my traitorous, homicidal brother.” She patted Tarvek upon the cheek. “Such a shame he got away after losing the fight with my attendants, especially poor, valiant—” She gestured towards the dead man, and then turned to Tarvek. “What
was
his name?”

Tarvek blinked. “I have no idea.”

“—Augustine,” Mechanical Lucrezia decided. “His name was Augustine.”

“We had a dear pussy cat named Augustine,” Lucrezia/Agatha confided to Tarvek. “He also had to die. It was very sad.”

Mechanical Lucrezia put the back of her hand to her head with a soft clong. “When brave Augustine impaled himself upon my wicked brother’s sword, why, I almost wept because I was unable to weep for him.” She paused, and turned to Lucrezia/Agatha. “I think that last part needs some work.”

Lucrezia/Agatha patted her on the head. “Oh, you’ll be magnificent, darling. Klaus’ man will swallow it whole, leaving Tarvek and me to work on the Hive Engines in peace.”

Vrin and Tarvek started waking up the rest of the slumbering Geisterdamen. As they waited, Mechanical Lucrezia pouted. “Oh, I
do
wish I could work on that adorable little engine that’s supposed to infect Sparks. That has
so
much potential.”

“Now, now. We need you here being a good girl so you’ll be able to actually
use
them when the time comes.”

“Tedious, but necessary,” Mechanical Lucrezia conceded. She leaned in and dropped her voice. “But it’s
so
unfair, you’ll also get to console poor Tarvek over the loss of his castle.”

Lucrezia/Agatha gave a shiver of anticipation. “Mmm, yes, that will be fun. He still thinks he’s going to learn all our secrets and rescue our daughter, you know.”

Mechanical Lucrezia stifled a laugh. “Such a romantic. Those are so much fun to break.”

Lucrezia/Agatha licked her lips. “I know. At some point I will have to let him think he’s got her back.” She fluttered her eyes. “She’ll be
ever
so grateful, of course.”

Mechanical Lucrezia slapped her on the arm. “You wicked,
wicked
girl!” and the two of them giggled. Tarvek heard them laughing. He didn’t know why, but a shudder ran down his spine.

Several minutes later, all of the pale women were awake. Tarvek twisted a finial, and a door appeared in what had seemed to be a solid wall. The Geisterdamen trotted through to scout on ahead.

Mechanical Lucrezia waved them farewell. “This is where we must part company, dear. I really must awaken my attendants and tell them what ‘really’ happened before I let anyone else in, and that will be ever so much simpler when you’re gone.”

Lucrezia/Agatha nodded. “Of course. I’ll contact you in a few months, when all the fuss has died down.” The two hugged, and then Lucrezia/Agatha shooed Vrin into the passage and swung the wall shut.

That done, she went in search of Tarvek. She found him in a small bolt-hole room. It had been stocked with food, bottles of water, and a large armoire, from which the prince was selecting a new outfit. She leaned against the doorframe and watched him as he dithered about selecting a shirt. The prince should be an easy conquest, when she got around to it.

She ran a connoisseur’s eye over the prince’s naked torso and snapped out of her reverie. Now that she was paying attention, she saw the muscles that moved on Tarvek’s back, as well as the ones on his arms. These were the result of determined exercise, and their patterns were similar to those she had seen on the myriad of fighting men she had leisurely examined as they slumbered beside her.

She felt a new layer of interest awakening within her. Prince Tarvek played the fop remarkably well, but his flesh unwittingly revealed a core of will and determination that he tried to keep hidden. He might be a more challenging conquest than she had assumed…

She cleared her throat. “Tarvek, it’s time to go. We can play dress-up when we arrive.”

There. A swift smirk flashed across his lips, which she never would have noticed if she hadn’t known to look for it. And now, as he faced her, his face was a textbook combination of embarrassment and annoyance. Lucrezia shivered with pleasure. He acted the fop, and was dangerously good at it, but she was better. That made it the perfect game. “Surely you don’t need much?”

Tarvek nodded and pulled a shirt off the shelf. She now suspected that he had selected it before he had opened the door. “True. The Geisterdamen carry everything important, and I do plan on coming back—” He paused.

“But?” Lucrezia asked.

Tarvek slumped, and selected a pair of boots. “But I don’t really know when I’ll be able to come back. This is my home, you know. My family’s responsibility. It’s surprisingly difficult leaving all this behind. Not knowing when or if I’ll return.” He pulled the boots on. “You ever get like that?”