Gil looked momentarily impressed. “Wow. I guess he is smart!” he growled. “Yessss! If I rip his heart out, it will solve all our problems!”
Agatha stared into Gil’s maddened face. “Ah, Gil, please don’t kill him.”
“Shh. It’ll be a great diversion!” Gil whispered.
He tossed Agatha out of the way.
“Gil!” she shouted. “You’re the one who said you’re supposed to stay calm!”
“I said relatively calm! Now stand back! I don’t want to get his blood all over you.” Gil took hold of the largest cable that connected him to Tarvek, and began to pull it toward him.
Agatha gave up. She turned to Violetta and Fraulein Snaug, who appeared to be settling in comfortably to watch the show. “Snaug, where are those parts you ferried down?”
Snaug was disappointed. “Aw…Now?”
Agatha grit her teeth. “Right now!”
Snaug dashed off. Before Agatha followed, she faced the fighters. “Don’t forget, you idiots! If you break those cables, I won’t have to kill you!”
Tarvek ignored her, and assumed a ridiculous boxer’s stance. “Ha!” he called out. “Come now, thou villain, and receive the thrashing you so richly deserve!”
Gil grinned at him lazily, and strode toward him, only to land in a crumpled heap on the ground.
“For shame, sirrah,” Tarvek said with exaggerated horror. “What are you doing? Must you always make a spectacle of yourself?”
Confused, Gil sat up. “Uh…”
Violetta blinked. “What the…”
Gil got to his feet. “I must’ve…”
“Tripped over your great clumsy feet?” Tarvek executed a mincing little shuffle step as he shadow-boxed. “Tch. At least try to face me like a gentleman.” He turned away haughtily, “Although why you should be expected to start now, I—”
Gil lunged, and his foot skidded out from under him. He crashed over a toolbox.
Tarvek looked embarrassed and offered Gil a hand up.
“I don’t believe it,” Violetta breathed.
Von Zinzer had made himself comfortable next to Violetta. He frowned. “Am I missing something?”
Gil batted Tarvek’s hand away. He spun to his feet and immediately folded back down, clutching his stomach.
“Ow!” Tarvek bleated, “My elbow! You ran right into it! Oooh! That smarts!”
Gil paused. “Wait a minute…”
“All through our training,” Violetta said in wonder, “That useless lump just sat around doodling girls and clockwork. But…those moves…” Her voice sharpened in outraged accusation. “He was paying attention after all!”
Gil looked at Tarvek as though he were seeing him for the first time. “You! You’re doing this on purpose.”
Tarvek gave a final little clownish skip and then settled into watchful stillness. “Aw! You figured it out. Much faster than I thought you would, too.”
Gil shook his head in admiration as he climbed to his feet. “Well done. You really had me fooled. I completely underestimated you.” He clapped his hands together. “And now, it’s your turn.”
Tarvek continued to grin. “What? I already got you three times! But I’ll cheerfully do it—” As he spoke, his foot snapped upward to where Gil’s face had been. But Gil had vanished. Tarvek felt a tap upon his shoulder. “No, no, no,” Gil said.
Tarvek whirled in place, his hands and feet scything through empty air.
“It’s your turn…” Gil said from near the floor.
Tarvek leapt back.
“…to underestimate…” The sound of Gil’s voice came from directly overhead.
Tarvek looked up while dropping into a squat.
“…me!”
And suddenly, there was Gil, also squatting, his grinning face centimeters from Tarvek’s own. He tapped Tarvek’s forehead with his forefinger. Tarvek went tumbling over backwards.
Gil rose to his feet and smiled down at him. “And that’s four. So now that we’ve got that all settled—”
Tarvek reached up and grabbed hold of Gil’s arm. “Forget finesse,” he growled, his own voice finally rising into the tones of the Spark. “I’ll just pound you, after all, like the worm you are!”
Suddenly, Gil was flying through the air. He twisted and his feet smacked into the wall. “That was surprising,” he admitted. He then launched himself back and sent Tarvek sprawling. “But then, I shouldn’t really be surprised, should I? You always were an underhanded fake.”
Tarvek’s foot connected with Gil’s jaw. He wrapped the cable that connected them around Gil’s neck. “Oh, and I suppose wallowing in the gutters of Paris was your idea of authenticity?” he snarled with a nasty grin. “Sooo Bohemian.”
Gil spun himself free. His fist barely missed Tarvek’s nose. “I had my reasons,” he roared.
“Well, sure!” Tarvek had to leap to avoid the leg sweep Gil aimed at him. “All your lowlife friends were there!” he roared back.
They collapsed, panting and glaring.
“Snitch,” Tarvek huffed.
“Sneak,” Gil wheezed back.
They rose to their knees and feebly tried to attack again.
“Libertine!” Tarvek growled weakly.
“Fop!” Gil shot back.
Tarvek’s head thudded to the floor. “I…I’d heard you could fight…I don’t feel so good…”
Gil tried to sneer, but realized that he lacked the strength to curl his lip. “You…you’re…pretty good…for a…a spoiled aristo…but this is…”
Suddenly, their chest devices were hooting urgently. Red lights flashed.
Tarvek looked worried. “Uh-oh…”
Gil poked weakly at the dials. “Maybe this wasn’t…um…the best plan we ever…”
The Castle had apparently been following their every move. “Plan?” it asked suspiciously. “What plan?”
“My plan!” Agatha shouted. She eyed Gil and Tarvek. “Or, at least, a small, inelegant, poorly thought-out part of it.”
Tarvek looked contrite. “Sorry.”
“I think we overdid it a bit,” mumbled Gil.
“Maybe just a bit, but it worked,” Agatha said.
She looked back to Snaug, who stood beside a new device, its belts spinning and coils glowing. Snaug gave her a thumbs-up signal.
She handed Tarvek a chest device similar to the ones he and Gil wore. “Here. Hook this up for all three of us.”
“NO!” the Castle screamed, “I told you! I forbid it!” The scream was broken into mechanical stutters, rising and falling in volume.
“Listen to you!” Agatha fumed. “You’re falling apart!”
“I see I must. Remove the problem. At the source!” the Castle sputtered. The instability in the voice was getting worse.
“That doesn’t sound good…” Tarvek began…
“Such. A pity…” it mourned.
There was a shudder in the stones around them. Gil grabbed Tarvek and rolled them both aside, just as a ceiling block crashed to the ground.
“They really are…” The Castle sent another stone dropping toward them as they dodged furiously,
“So entertaining…but ultimately…” A bolt of energy struck the ground as Tarvek grabbed Gil and leapt aside. “…they are replaceable.”
The Castle’s voice had deteriorated to a broken, echoing whisper. It sounded like three Castles, whose speech was overlapping slightly.
“NO!” Agatha screamed, as she threw a switch on the new machine. “They are not replaceable!” She threw a second lever. “But you—you are!”
There was a roar of electrical discharge. The Castle gave a ghastly, drawn-out shriek, shook to its deepest foundations, then abruptly cut off into silence.
_______________
80 Just how Sparks are able to warp the laws of time and motion (among others) has never been successfully analyzed. People who try to carefully watch them report suffering a sort of cognitive dissonance where they simply cannot remember what happened even though it happened right in front of them. These, as it turns out, are the lucky ones, as most people who get too close to a Spark who is happily building something tend to wake up and realize that they have become components.