Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

⁶¹ At this time, Imobilex jugs were state of the art portable containment units used to transport dangerous materials such as unstable chemicals or potential explosives.

⁶² Empire records for the year in question do not show the Vespiary Squad active in Belgrade, but one of the sergeant’s grandchildren does live there, so the chance that the sergeant was visiting during the incident of the Three Sewer Golems, which was highly publicized at the time, while coincidental, is not at all unlikely.

⁶³ When the Wulfenbach Empire had to take down a rebellious Spark, the official policy was to welcome the defeated Spark’s constructs and experimental subjects into the forces of the Empire. Most of them leapt at the chance to be part of a large organization that actually saw to their well-being. Plus, it offered them a chance to punch Sparks, and get paid for it.

⁶⁴ Othar Tryggvassen has put forth the revolutionary hypothesis that Sparks are responsible for most of the war, death, and assorted chaos in the world, and wishes to test this by eliminating all Sparks and seeing if the world actually improves. The only awkward part of this is that Othar is a rather strong Spark in his own right, but he has promised that when he has eliminated all of the other Sparks from the world, he will also kill himself. Ironically, many Sparks are conflicted about this, as his hypothesis is compelling, his methodology seems sound, and many argue that it would be a valid experiment.

⁶⁵ Deep within the Paris Department of Justice, there is a vault full of locked files under the personal seal of the Master of Paris. One of them is labeled “The Maubert Wind-Up Assassin Affair.” It occupies a rather full shelf dedicated to the after-school activities of one G. Holzfaller.

⁶⁶ At an impressionable age, young Andronicus read a number of scholarly works that talked about a king being a fertility symbol. He thought this was a mighty fine idea.

⁶⁷ There was an appreciable gap between what fragile, organic humans and cold, crystal intelligences found “funny.” This problem resulted in a great deal of death and destruction until the Spark Simon van Stampfer created the Stroboscope and produced the first electromagnetic kinetic-projection of a cat attempting to catch its own tail. Once a baseline for humor appreciation was established, human/machine relations improved greatly.

⁶⁸ It happens in even the best families.

⁶⁹ The Mongfish family, rich in Sparks and steeped in evil as a means to an end, have woven their schemes behind the scenes throughout Europa’s history.

⁷⁰ Certainly the capper to the Heterodyne’s meddling in the affairs of the House of Mongfish had to be Bill Heterodyne’s wooing and marrying Lucifer Mongfish’s favorite daughter, Lucrezia. At the very least, the holidays were an awkward time for all concerned.

⁷¹ Zola is understating things. Cain Mongfish’s masterpiece, A Reasoned Diatribe Regarding thee Methods and Required Madnesses Towards the Manipulation of ye Stuffe of Life and thee Entertaining Consequences Thereof and How Best to Avoid Them is regarded as the seminal work that gathered and codified all of the then-known processes for reanimating, bending, warping, and subjugating life as we know it. Cain died while researching a sequel, which according to his notes was to be entitled How to Promote and Manipulate thee Natural Fealty and Gratitude That Thine Creation Will Express Towards Thou, Their Creator. For some reason, that never works.

CHAPTER 8

After Faustus Heterodyne finished his Great Work, the waters of the river Dyne ran clean—at least beyond Mechanicsburg’s famous “mouth of the Dyne” sculpture through which it leaves Castle Heterodyne and falls to the base of the pinnacle from which it springs. Previously, the waters had been possessed of unusual and generally poisonous properties and had wound through the landscape, killing or mutating man and beast alike.

Once the waters of the Dyne were cleansed and the Castle and its defenses improved, the Heterodyne began the task of fully establishing his town.

Faustus liked the idea of ruling his own city, but—aside from his own band of reavers, the occasional oppressed servant, and the extremely odd camp followers that favored his men—the area was sorely lacking in people. The Heterodyne was forced to create a thriving population from next to nothing. He threw himself into the challenge with a will.

From that point on, across Europa and Asia, indeed, wherever he raided, Faustus was seen consulting what his men jovially called “The Master’s Shopping List.” But it was not a list of stores, treasure, or materials—it was a list of people.