He looked at the implacable face of The Muse. “This will work—won’t it?”
Smoothly, the seated figure fanned out a large deck of cards face down, and gestured to Tarvek that he was to select one. Tarvek gingerly picked a card. He turned and examined it, a frown crossing his face. The picture showed a glowing funnel cloud bearing down on, or possibly being generated by, an intricate little device of unknown function. The number at the top read “XXX.”
“The Whirlwind,” he said flatly. “‘Great power at great risk.’ Or alternatively, ‘beware of things underground.’ Or possibly, ‘expect an unexpected friend.’ Or even ‘learn a new piece of music.’” He flipped the card back onto Moxana’s board with a sigh. “Thank you, oh Muse of Mystery.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I suppose I’ll just have to...”
He paused, as faint strains of... was that music? It was music, of a sort, and it was getting louder—or closer...
This latter proved to be the correct guess, as around the corner came a flowing tide of light. It was a horde of tiny machines. Tarvek realized that they looked similar to the small clank Agatha had worked on.
They were all producing a soft orange glow, and they were all humming a variant of the weird atonal melody that he had last heard from Agatha herself. And now, at the crest of the tide of machines, Agatha herself appeared. Her feet hidden by the adoring devices. To the electrified Tarvek, she appeared to be gliding towards him upon a seething river of light. Somehow, he could instantly tell that this was in fact Agatha, and not Lucrezia. With that realization, he tore his eyes away from her and focused on the machines at her feet.
“Your little clanks,” he breathed, “They’re reproducing the heterodyning music. Brilliant!” He listened briefly. Tarvek considered himself a rather good musician, and he realized—“The music is a little off from the stuff you produce yourself. Understandable, of course, but the effect upon your mind must be—”
Agatha’s hands whipped out and Tarvek found himself caught up, his face centimeters from hers. Up close he could see that she was under considerable strain. Sweat was pouring down her face, and the pupils of her eyes were reduced to pinpoints.
“She’s winning,” Agatha rasped in a guttural voice. “I need your lab.”
“Yes!” Tarvek gasped. “Yes! Of course!” He succeeded in pulling himself free of Agatha’s grasp. “What are you going to do?”
She looked at him bleakly. “The only thing I can do.”
Meanwhile, Agatha’s rescuers found themselves trudging through the sewers of Sturmhalten for yet a third time. Their situation was improved however, in that this time, they had been supplied with guides, a pair of dour plumbers, who reluctantly admitted to knowing the sewers “as well as anyone.”
They were also accompanied by one Herr Veilchen, who freely admitted to being an assassin in the employ of the Royal Family. The only ones who didn’t feel nervous around him were the Jägers, who cheerfully tried to engage him in technical discussions about the best way to kill people in increasingly bizarre situations.
“I cannot believe how big these damn sewers are,” Krosp groused for possibly the hundredth time. “The town isn’t that big.”
“You gotta remember,” Sturvin, the first plumber said, “Balan’s Gap used to be bigger. This is where the Western Coalition managed to hold back the old Heterodynes. There were a lot of armies bivouacked here for almost a decade before the Storm King whipped everyone into shape. The only reason the whole thing held together was because they had a proper sewage system.” You could tell that this was a man who believed that his field of specialization was single-handedly responsible for dragging mankind down from the trees. In this case, perhaps a bit too far down, but you still had to admire his enthusiasm.
Lars carefully stepped over a bubbling green puddle. “So how did you two get to be such experts on the secret passages down here?”
Sturvin snorted. “We’ve worked down here for twenty-seven years, man.”
The shorter plumber, Kalikoff, joined in. “When you’re being chased and you need a place to hide, you learn what to look for.”
Lars looked uneasy. “Chased? By what?”
“Duh—the usual. Giant cockroaches. Sewer serpents. Ghouls. It’s a sewer. With tunnels connecting to the catacombs. What do you expect?”
Lars shivered. “Most sewers don’t have any of that stuff.”
Sturvin blinked in surprise. “What?”
Kalikoff looked at Lars skeptically. “Really? No albino squid?”
“No!”
The small man frowned. “How about rats? Everybody’s gotta have them giant glowing rats.”
Lars shook his head. “No. Little rats. Sixty centimeters. Tops.”
The two plumbers looked at each other. Sturvin frowned. “That is one messed up ecosystem, man.”
Kalikoff shook his head in agreement. “So in these other sewers—if they don’t have this stuff, what do the big monsters eat?”
“What am I doing in here?” Lars screamed.
Zeetha patted him on the arm. “You’re here to rescue Agatha, hero.”
Lars closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Right! Yes! Agatha! Beautiful girl held captive by depraved prince. Yes. Third act. Curtain going up.” He took another breath and smiled at Zeetha. “Okay, I’m good.” Krosp rolled his eyes.
Maxim turned to Herr Veilchen. “Hyu know de layout uv der kestle. Vere do dey keep all dere beautiful gurl captives?”
The assassin considered this. “Yes, of course, you’ll want to rescue your friend first. I should have expected that. My priority is the shutting down of the lightning moat, but I don’t see a conflict. Once we get inside, I will direct you to the dungeons, and then proceed on my own.”
“Und vat if she iz not in der dungeons?”
“Then I expect you’ll cause enough havoc looking for her that I’ll have no trouble at all.”
Maxim laughed. “Hyu gots dot right.”
The cloaked man considered him for a moment. “I must confess to being surprised at the involvement of Jägermonsters in this matter. Is this Agatha of interest to the Baron?”
Maxim made a show of dismissing this idea. “Heh. Mizz Agatha, she help uz out avhile ago. She safe our lives. Ve gots to pay her beck. Hyu know how it iz.”
“Hmm, I see.” Veilchen answered like a man who did indeed know how it was, but only on an academic level.
“Besides,” Maxim continued, “Hit looks like dere might be sum goot fighting in dis. Dem Geistergurls iz pretty fast.”
Veilchen waved a hand. “Oh, I try to avoid unpleasantness like that.”
Maxim looked surprised. “Really?”
“Oh, yes. It’s much more satisfying to kill without a fight.”
Maxim stared at him. “Oh.” Was all he said.
“Quiet!” This was delivered in a strained whisper from Kalikoff, who held up a hand to stop the group.
“What is it?” whispered Krosp.
“Listen,” Sturvin muttered, “There’re voices coming from the tunnel up ahead. Weird voices.”
This was not the first time this had happened. Zeetha frowned. “But I thought you said these were the secret tunnels.”
Sturvin shrugged. “Guess the Prince decided to share after all.”
Kalikoff crossed a passage off on a map. There were a number of other passages marked in red. “This was the last of the routes that the princess suggested.”