Marie knew what was going through her head and patted her hand. “Just think of it as another part, my dear.” Agatha tore her eyes away from the dull creature in the mirror and nodded.
Lars strode up and took her left hand. “Here,” he said briskly. “This couldn’t hurt.” He slipped a gold ring upon Agatha’s finger. She examined it. It was a wide band, seemingly constructed of smaller gold wires laced together. She looked up at Lars.
He grinned. “Tell him you’re married. Some of these guys don’t like to shop second-hand, if you know what I mean.” Agatha blushed. Lars continued. “I use it keep me out of trouble when I pass through a town.”
Agatha looked at him askance. “What kind of trouble?”
“Unasked for romantic entanglements,” he said frankly. “More importantly, it unfolds into a very serviceable lock pick that opens a wide variety of cell doors.” Lars smiled. “Trust me on that.”
Agatha leaned in and gave him a kiss. “Thank you, Lars.”
As Master Payne escorted her to the waiting coach, a small frown crossed her face. “People keep giving me rings,” she confided to him, “But I think a small death ray might be more practical.”
Master Payne merely patted her hand and assisted her into the waiting coach.
This was a splendid looking vehicle. A roomy, elegantly styled black compartment, adorned with fenders and finials of gleaming silver. Silver caged lights festooned the surface, and the now-familiar sword and gear sigil was emblazoned upon the sides.
As the footman assisted her up into the plush, satin-lined interior, Agatha realized that there were no horses. Once the door was closed, the driver threw a lever, and there was a great hissing from the back of the coach. Through the small, leaded rear window, Agatha saw an sturdy little motor burble into life, and with a cloud of steam, the coach rumbled off.
Agatha took the opportunity to examine the passing scenery. Balan’s Gap was a prosperous town, thanks to the pass, and had been so for quite awhile. All of its streets were paved with cobblestone or brick, and the night was illuminated by hundreds of lights.
Not just by the traditional torches, gaslamps and incidental fires of the still bustling shops and taverns, but also by the startling blue-white glare of the new-fangled electrical arc lamps that were coming out of England. Overall, surface travel was certainly reduced from its glory days, but you’d never know it here. Travelers from all across the Empire wove through the streets of Balan’s Gap.
But the town had its eye upon the future. They rolled past the airship docks, and Agatha could see that they were being expanded. Still brightly lit despite the lateness of the hour, teams of stevedores and balloonjacks were roaring and calling as cargo cranes groaned as they swung pallets loaded with cargo to and from the lines of waiting delivery wagons. The roads here were choked with carts and vans, their teamsters swearing and screaming at each other in a dozen different languages.
The driver of Agatha’s coach relied upon his distinctive horn to clear the way, but when that failed, he did not hesitate to leave the roadway and send pedestrians leaping for safety by driving down the sidewalks without ever reducing his considerable speed. Occasionally members of the city constabulary would hear the commotion, see the cause, and hastily drag themselves and anyone nearby to safety, stepping out again only when the royal coach had passed.
In this manner they approached the castle. This was a massive edifice, obviously built as a solid defense against a dangerous foe. Agatha realized with a start that this must be fabled Sturmhalten Castle itself.
Ancient battle scars covered its stone walls, but it stood unbroken. A wide moat, easily thirty meters wide surrounded it, spanned by a single grand causeway, lined with lights. The coach turned onto this, and Agatha glimpsed the gigantic doors of the castle itself, opening to admit them.
They passed beneath the massive portcullis and into an interior courtyard that was brightly lit with electrical lights and alive with servants bustling about.
Here the coach slowed and actually took some care as it threaded delicately between the people and inner structures. It finally glided to a stop, hissing, at the foot of a broad marble stairway, which was flanked by two statues holding large, electrically lit globes.
Several steps up, idly tapping his foot was a tall, elegantly dressed young man. Dark auburn hair was artlessly swept away from his eyes, which were adorned with a tiny pair of spectacles.
When the driver and footman saw him, they froze, and then leapt to the ground and frantically tried to get the coach door open while babbling. “Forgive me, your Highness!” Agatha then noticed the pin at the young man’s throat, which was the same sword-in-winged gear that adorned many of the walls and lampposts in the town. “We brought the young lady as swiftly as we could, Prince Tarvek—the market—!”
The young man waved his hand impatiently, cutting the babbling off dead. His voice, when he spoke was obviously amused. The sound of it sent an odd sensation down Agatha’s spine.
“Yes, yes. Calm yourself.” He stopped before the bowing servants and languidly motioned for them to straighten up. “My Royal father insisted that I meet the coach.” The servants blinked and stood rooted to the spot. The young man sighed. “”You may now leave us. We shall escort our guest to dinner.”
He then turned to Agatha, who executed a perfect curtsey. “Your Highness,” she said.
Tarvek focused his attention upon her fully and his smile faltered. What the devil is she wearing? he thought to himself. For a moment he wondered whether the circus had tried to send a different girl. This plain thing bore only a superficial resemblance to the fiery actress he’d seen strutting about the stage—
Actress... Tarvek stopped and forced himself to mentally step back and analyze what he was seeing. The planes of her hair, the lines artfully painted upon her face, the perfection of awfulness that was her dress... His breath caught in admiration. There was cunning here.
The Prince smiled in genuine appreciation at a work of art, and took her hand, “Enchanté,” he murmured. He then folded her hand across his arm and they climbed the stairs, and entered the castle.
They swept past rows of bowing servants. Several of these darted on ahead, no doubt to warn the rest of the staff, as wherever they went, they were met by downturned heads. Agatha began to wonder if Royalty was inclined to study phrenology.
“My father and my sister will be joining us.” Tarvek said. “It will be a small, family meal tonight. You must forgive the impromptu informality of the occasion, but we know your troupe will want to leave tomorrow, and we quite enjoyed your performance.”
The castle interior was magnificently decorated, with rich carpets and floor tiles arranged in intricate mathematical patterns. Grand tapestries depicting scenes of the Storm King’s legend lined the hallways, and where they were absent, lavish paneling and cunning woodwork carved into fantastically interwoven geometric shapes were to be seen.
They entered a large open area, which was dominated by a grand fireplace. Agatha paused in admiration. Most fireplaces, in her experience, served as large, efficient heat pumps apparently designed to suck warmth from all other parts of the room. This one, however, had been overlaid with a fantastic arrangement of large glass pipes, filled with a slow roiling liquid, which swept out from the sides of the fireplace and curled around the entire room in a series of graceful arabesques. As a result, the large room was delightfully warm, even here at the doorway. Agatha was impressed.
“The heat is stored in the liquid, which is piped around the room, where it evenly radiates back out,” she declared in admiration. She studied the liquid slowly moving through the nearest pipe. “This isn’t water, is it?”