Marie was intrigued. “But which piece—”
Payne interrupted her. “Not just a new piece. Not just started over—this is a completely new game. A different game, with different rules.” He shook his head. “I’m still working it out, but this Miss Clay is the center of the whole thing.”
Marie’s eyes widened. “What is she?” she whispered. “What have we done?”
Payne looked at her and gave a single, mirthless bark of laughter. “We did what we had to do. You said it yourself. We couldn’t leave her. That may have been... truer than you’d meant.”
“But we couldn’t... ah.” Marie absorbed this. “I find Determinism a very lazy philosophical viewpoint,” she groused, “But... a new game...”
Payne gently slid his hand around her shoulders. “If we hurry, we’ll be in Mechanicsburg in a little over two months. She plans to leave us there. With luck, and a bit of care on our part, she may never notice anything.”
Marie nodded, but her voice was skeptical. “Two months. With this lot?” The couple shared a significant look and shrugged in unison.
From the peaked roof of one of the wagons, Krosp watched them walk off, arm-in-arm.
As Agatha finished peeling her basket of beets, a stout, bipedal clank carrying an enormous load of logs emerged from the forest and strutted toward them. Perched atop the large domed head was Balthazar, who waved excitedly when he saw them. “I brought wood!” he sang out. “Where do you want it, Herr Embi?”
The little man nodded approvingly and pointed to the beginnings of a fire circle that lay nearby. “One more load and you’re done for the day, lad.” He looked at Agatha’s basket and smiled. “And it looks like you are done as well, Miss Clay. Good job! There’ll be borscht tonight!”
Agatha needed no more prompting. She darted off after the clank. There was something about it that had seemed odd, and she wanted a better look at it.
The device moved slowly, and she easily caught up to it. Agatha examined it as she walked alongside. Balthazar smiled down at her from his perch. “Pretty neat clank, hey?” he said with pride.
Agatha nodded. “Indeed it is. Where did your family get it?”
“He.” Balthazar corrected her. “This is Smilin’ Stev. My dad used to be a smith for the Porcelain Count of Niktalten. He’s the guy who used to take down airships with his clockwork falcons. When the Baron beat him, Dad took Stev here as his back pay.” The boy affectionately patted the clank on the head. “He’s nothing fancy, so none of the bad people we run into think he’s worth stealing. He just pulls our cart and fetches wood and water.”
A light dawned. “Ah—That’s what confused me.”
Balthazar suddenly looked wary. “What?”
Agatha pointed at the mechanical troll’s limbs as they pistoned along. “Has your father ever opened Stev up? These joints are really complicated. And look at the way these plates overlap. I think this clank may be a bit more sophisticated than you think.”
“Dad says Stev is slow and stupid, just like Mama likes ’em.”
This pronouncement effectively broke Agatha’s chain of thought. “Wait...
Balthazar smiled at her innocently. “Dad plays Punch in the Heterodyne plays[19].”
“But—”
Suddenly, Agatha realized that while she had been intent on the clank, she had been flanked by Rivet the mechanic, and Andre, the troupe’s music master. Rivet was assuring Andre that Agatha was a decent mechanic—or at least talked like one. She turned and smiled cheerfully. “Hello, Agatha!” she chirped. “Feeling bored?”
Agatha saw that escape was impossible. “This doesn’t involve root vegetables, does it?”
Rivet considered this. “No.”
“Or hitting me with sticks?”
Andre frowned. “Hardly. If I remember correctly, you told Master Payne that you could play anything with a keyboard?”
Agatha perked up. “Yes! He was asking me if I had any performance experience[20]. Lilith gave me lessons—ballroom dancing and piano, mostly. Sometimes, I got to play the big organ at Transylvania Polygnostic, too. And there was that accordion Doctor Vogel had hidden in his lab. He didn’t know we knew about it, but one time...”
Andre interrupted her. “And you’re a mechanic! It’s too perfect!”
They led her to the baggage wagons. “You’ll like this—we have a repair job for you! When that clank attacked, it completely smashed our calliope.” Andre untied a rope holding down a canvas cover and whipped it aside with a showman’s flourish. “Behold! The Silverodeon! Once the finest steam-powered music machine this side of the Carpathians.”
Revealed was a carved and painted cart that held an accumulation of scrap metal and twisted piping. Agatha could tell that this was the wreckage of some sort of musical instrument, but the damage looked like it had been caused as much by sheer neglect as by the clank attack.
“But... really? Agatha stepped up to the wagon and took a closer look. “I wouldn’t think it’s been played in years.”
Andre shrugged. “Ah, it just looks like that. We’ve discovered that if something appears too shiny and new, we run the risk of losing it to some damned princeling out for a new toy.”
Balthazar had said something similar. Agatha ran an eye over the circus wagons ranged before her. It explained a lot.
“But how can I fix this? That is, if I had the right tools, I think I could do it, but it’ll take more than basic cart repair tools for a job like this...”
Rivet grinned. “Ho! Tools I’ve got! Come on over here.”
Agatha turned to Andre. “I’m surprised you can’t fix it.”
He dismissed this with an elegant shrug. “Ah, while I know keyboards, I am, alas, no mechanic. Rivet here, while a fine mechanic, does not play. At the very least, I’m hoping you can get the basics sorted out before you leave us at Mechanicsburg.”
Agatha grimaced. “Well, I’ll try, but without a shop, without proper tools—”
They stopped beside Rivet’s wagon. It was covered in elaborate panels, which upon closer examination, Agatha noticed were actually cabinet doors. Rivet pulled out a ring of keys and began unlocking them and throwing them open one after the other, giving a proud little “Ta-dah!” with each reveal. Agatha watched this performance with growing astonishment. Within the cunningly-wrought cabinets were rack upon rack of gleaming tools, lovingly placed. Once all the doors were open, Rivet began fiddling with additional latches, unfolding and extending displays to reveal new wonders.
And wonders they were. Even some of the obscure tools she had only seen used in the most specialized labs at Transylvania Polygnostic were represented—often with a left-handed variant, and in a variety of sizes.
Delicate watch-making tools crafted from gold wire and ivory were a single rack away from a collection of monkey-wrenches that could have been used to uncouple the main fuel lines aboard Castle Wulfenbach. Tools constructed of everything from wood to what appeared to be tempered glass were artfully laid out around objects that even Agatha, with all her University experience, was having trouble identifying. Below the tools were what must have been hundreds of built-in drawers that contained nails, screws, bolts, and fasteners in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes, with each compartment neatly labeled.
Agatha stood back and took in this immense collection of ironmongery. She now understood why Rivet’s wagon had to be pulled by a team of six draft horses.
“Sweet lightning,” she whispered. “This is an amazing collection. I don’t think the University has some of these!” She reverently picked up a locking wrench. “They’re beautifully made.” Craftsmen often constructed their own tools as an important part of their apprenticeship, but this collection ran across dozens of different trades.
Rivet nodded. “I find them out here in the Wastelands. Abandoned towns, crashed airships—you can find all
