“FREEE!”
Agatha leaned over the edge and screamed back. “I said, ‘no more delays!’”
There was a crowd in the apartment. When Vanamonde arrived, the leaders of Mechanicsburg society paused in their whispered conversations and stepped aside to let him pass. In one corner, a smaller knot of close friends had gathered around Arella.
Van hurried to her side. “I came as soon as I heard, Mother. How is Grandfather?”
Arella smiled gamely. “He seems all right. He’s been asking for you.”
“What happened?”
Arella shrugged. “No one is sure. He just suddenly gave a shout, and collapsed in the middle of the Poisoner’s Market.”87
The doctor stepped out of the bedroom, rolling down her sleeves as she walked. “He seems more embarrassed than anything else,” she said to Van and his mother. “But he’s positively frantic to see you, so the sooner you get in there, the sooner he might actually rest.”
Van thanked her and stepped into his grandfather’s bedroom.
The seneschals of Mechanicsburg tended to live simply and Carson von Mekkhan certainly continued that tradition.
The main features of the room were an elegantly carved bed frame and two matching wardrobes. A small shrine—one of the few personal touches evident—held a single votive lamp before portraits of the old man’s late wife and son.
The former master of the city was propped up in the center of an enormous goose-down mattress. A fresh set of bandages covered his head. He was distracted, staring into the distance, nervously stroking the belly of the cat.
Van cleared his throat. “Grandfather?”
“Finally!” Carson looked relieved and shifted, sending the cat off in a resigned huff.
Van removed his frock coat and carefully sat down on the edge of the old man’s bed. He had to admit that the Doctor’s assessment matched his own. “So what happened?”
“That blasted heap of rubble!” Van knew to whom, or rather to what, his grandfather was referring. “All these years it must have had some kind of hold on me…”
Or maybe not. “Grandfather, what are you talking about?”
“The Castle,” the old man said flatly. “They’ve killed it.” He tapped his head. “I felt it die.” He stared back at his grandson defiantly.
Van considered this outrageous statement. “The Castle is…dead.”
“Yes.”
Vanamonde regarded his grandfather. “And you felt it die.”
“Yes!”
Van sighed and rested his elbows on his knees and allowed his head to sag forward. “Well,” he muttered. “That explains some things.”
Carson stared at him amazement. “You believe me?”
Van didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Oh, yes.”
“What’s happened?”
Van sat up straight and peaked his fingertips together. With a shock, Carson recognized the gesture as one that he himself used whenever he had to make a report.
“All the town clocks have stopped,” Van said quietly. “All of the fountains have stopped flowing. The bridges over the rivers no longer work, nor do the street and traffic signals.” He turned to face the old man. “Grandfather, where does the Castle end and Mechanicsburg begin?”
The two men stared at each other in silence. Van turned away. “Never mind. I think I’m beginning to guess…”
Carson looked at his grandson and allowed himself to sink back into his pillows. Awkwardly, he reached out and patted his grandson on the arm. “You were so young. You never really knew what it was like when the Castle was fully operational. You never saw the town really…really running.” Van raised his eyebrows. Carson snapped out of his reverie. “I’m sorry, my boy. The girl…she must have failed.” He closed his eyes. “I had…allowed myself to hope…”
Van looked at him in surprise. “Failed?” He seemed genuinely taken aback at the idea. “Agatha? Failed? No, I don’t think so.”
Carson’s eyes popped open and he regarded his grandson with interest. Van shifted upon the bed. “I…No, I can’t really explain it, but…”
Carson began to smile. “But you can’t imagine her failing.”
Van thought about this, and began to look slightly alarmed. “No, I can’t.”
Carson nodded. “She’s your Heterodyne, all right.”
“But—”
“You’ll make a fine seneschal,” Carson declared with satisfaction.
Van snorted. “If I get the chance! We still don’t know what the Baron is doing. He’s kept most of his troops outside the walls. It’s obvious that he has some plan in motion to get his son out before he flattens the place, but we don’t know how that race is going.” He leapt to his feet, strode over to the window, and stared upwards at the Castle it framed.
“If he knows about this, he’ll…” Van began. “But does he know? Surely, if he knew that the Castle was dead, he’d…” He spun about and faced his grandfather. “But how could he not? He must know! It’s so obvious! And if he knows, then why hasn’t he already attacked?”
In the elegant gardens of the Inner Courtyard of the Great Hospital, a battle was taking place. Orderlies and nurses scurried frantically through the building, evacuating patients from rooms facing the open area.
The Baron’s enormous clank stood alone. Within the cockpit, smoke poured from a control panel, and one of the operators wiped a rivulet of blood from her eyes. She blinked at the console, which was covered with urgently blinking red lights.
“Status?” the Baron asked.
“Not good, Herr Baron,” she answered. “The hydraulics have ruptured, and we’re losing pressure in the left leg. I’m trying to shunt cooling fluid to—”
“INCOMING,” screamed the other operator. A massive blow landed upon the central torso. With a whine, the last of the gyroscopes spun into shards that ricocheted away across the lawns.
On the ground below, Bangladesh DuPree nodded grimly. “That did it! He’s going down!” She dashed forward, followed by a terrified squad of soldiers and medical technicians.
With a final groan of tortured metal, the great walker toppled backwards and crashed to the earth, throwing up a shockwave of soil and vegetation for several meters in all directions.
In the cockpit, The Baron struggled for consciousness. “No!” His speech was slurred, but there was no mistaking the desperate iron in his voice. “You can’t do this! There’s too much I have to do! I have to save my son.”
The center of a cloud of swirling smoke and dust seemed to coalesce into a shadowy figure, which leapt onto the fallen machine’s chest.
“You’re dooming all of Europa,” Klaus croaked. “I’m the only one who can do this. I have to save everything before she gets to me.”
The smoke cleared to reveal Dr. Sun. His elegant coat was tattered, and smoke curled up from his beard.
“Fool,” he declared scornfully. “You are saving nothing! Your delusions will kill you and destroy the Empire!” The Baron started to speak, and was cut off as Sun jabbed a large hypodermic deep into his chest. He shuddered once, and collapsed.
“The Empire does need you!” Doctor Sun raged.
“But you never listen to your doctor! I said strict bed rest!” He stood up, panting, and made an effort to straighten his ragged coat. “—And I meant it!”
Aboard the great airship Castle Wulfenbach, Boris Vasily Konstantin Andrei Myshkin Dolokhov stood in the Empire’s war room and listened to a report of the events at the Great Hospital. He sighed and used two of his four hands to clean his glasses. Another ran through his hair. Being the Baron’s second-in-command was never easy, but today… Today, he desperately wished that his free hand held a tall glass of vodka. Preferably some of that stuff that the fuel chemists in engineering brewed up—the kind that tended to spontaneously ignite when exposed to strong sunlight.