The Wooden Prince

by John Claude Bemis

  “An earth elemental,” Geppetto said absently. “But enough questions. I need to fix this chimera box if we’re to earn some gold, and you’ve already cost me an evening of work.”

  “I didn’t realize I had,” Pinocchio said. “Forgive me, Master. I heard you say you needed gold to hire an armed coach. Are we going somewhere?”

  Geppetto narrowed his eyes at him but didn’t reply. He continued his work, soldering bits of metal to repair portions of the lid. As he worked, his eyes flickered to Pinocchio.

  Pinocchio shifted on the stool. “Am I just to sit here, Master? I could do something for you.” He saw no feathered fans around to wave, and certainly Master Geppetto didn’t need him to carry out any trays of food. “I could hand you your tools.”

  “I can get them myself.” Geppetto squatted to search through drawers under the counter.

  “What does a chimera box do?” Pinocchio asked, reaching to open the lid.

  “NO!” Maestro shouted.

  A horrendous noise rose from the box. Geppetto leaped up and clapped the lid shut. “Ravage and ruin! How am I supposed to work with you around?”

  “I—I only wanted to see what it did,” Pinocchio stammered.

  “As you can now see,” Geppetto said gruffly, “it’s an alarm that is supposed to go off only around chimera—or half-beasts, as we call them here in the empire. This one is broken and has been going off around anything remotely animal, including Signora Ferragutti’s numerous house cats as well as…Maestro.”

  “I’m sorry, Master. I just wanted to help you with it.”

  “You can help by keeping your hands to yourself!” Geppetto said. “I have much to sort out. We haven’t much time.”

  “Time before what?” Pinocchio said. “Before we leave?” He was curious to know where Geppetto was planning to take him. He hoped it was somewhere interesting.

  Geppetto pointed to a broom. “Take that and go sweep my quarters in the back. You shouldn’t be out here in plain view anyway. Can you do that?”

  “Of course, Master.”

  “Then do it.”

  Pinocchio hopped down from the stool and took the broom back through the curtain, excited to see where Geppetto lived. He was disappointed to find a single room of ancient stone walls and a dusty stone floor. A narrow, unmade bed sat against one wall. A dresser and sagging bookcase stood beside the back door. Otherwise the only furniture was a chair and an oak table, where Geppetto’s bowl of half-eaten porridge remained. It was no better than the storage room for the automa servants back in the floating palace!

  Pinocchio began to sweep, brushing the dust toward the hearth. Something moved in the cinders of the fireplace. He bent down to get a closer look and spied a fat, wriggling lizard in the fire. The creature’s tail looked broken off, and Pinocchio suddenly realized that this must be a salamander.

  Geppetto stormed in, and Pinocchio hurriedly began sweeping again.

  “Sit down over here,” Geppetto commanded, gesturing to the chair.

  “You want me to sit again?” Pinocchio flopped down.

  Geppetto perched himself on the edge of his bed, rubbing his hands together. “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Master. You took me from Don Antonio’s last—”

  “Someone sent you to me. I want to know who it was.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Maestro flew in and landed on the table. Geppetto ran his fingers through his mane of silvery-black hair. “Cursed oblivious automa,” he grumbled. “If only we designed you with decent memories…”

  “But I do, Master.”

  “Do what?”

  “I do remember,” Pinocchio said. “At least I remember something. Not really before. But since.”

  Geppetto sat straighter. “Before and since what?”

  “The night the prisoner freed me.”

  Geppetto’s expression changed, as completely as night to day. “Who freed you?”

  “He didn’t exactly free me,” Pinocchio said. “He gave me to you, Master. But he freed me from the palace. And he did something strange to my functions. Before, I hadn’t a care for anything except attending to the palace guests like the other automa. But after that night when I delivered a meal to the palace prison, I began to notice things I hadn’t before.”

  “Do you remember the prisoner’s name?”

  “He never told me,” Pinocchio said. He touched the front of his shirt. “For a few moments, I stopped functioning and everything went dark. When I started working again, the prisoner was closing the panel in my chest, and he said, ‘Your new master is going to be Geppetto. I’m sending you to him.’ Then he said, ‘They’ll be back any moment. Quickly now. Out the window before they arrive.’ So I jumped as he ordered.”

  That had been such a curious feeling. The falling. That had certainly never happened to him before.

  “I sank down to the bottom of the sea,” Pinocchio said. “I can’t swim, after all, with these heavy gears in me. It was dark down there. Finally hands took hold of me. They put me in that trunk. For such a long time! I banged and shouted and wanted to get free, but I couldn’t, until they let me out in Don Antonio’s cellar. And now I’m with you here, wherever this is.”

  Maestro shifted on his cricket legs. “The last refuge of the hopeless.”

  “Oh,” Pinocchio said, having no idea what the cricket meant.

  “You’re in Tuscany,” Geppetto said. “An out-of-the-way corner of the Venetian Empire.”

  “Oh,” Pinocchio said again, no closer to understanding. “But why did the prisoner send me to you, Master?”

  “That’s what I want to know.” Geppetto twisted his mustache. “The prisoner didn’t give you instructions?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? No message for me? He just sent you to me.”

  Pinocchio shrugged.

  “How anyone knows I am here is troubling, to put it mildly,” Geppetto mumbled.

  “Maybe there’s a message inside with his fantom,” Maestro said.

  “But whoever placed it there has made sure the automa will protect it,” Geppetto said. “He nearly broke my arm last night. He can’t allow me to open him.”

  “I would if I could,” Pinocchio said. “You’re my master. I don’t like when my nose grows. I want to do as you ask.”

  Geppetto’s eyes flashed as if he had just realized something. “Yes! Just maybe…Stay still, lad. I want to try something.” He walked several strides back from Pinocchio. “Open your shirt.”

  “All right, Master,” Pinocchio said and unbuttoned his shirt.

  Geppetto nodded to the polished wood of Pinocchio’s chest. “Can you open that panel?”

  Maestro crept slowly on his long legs to the edge of the table to get a better view.

  “I think so,” Pinocchio replied.

  “Then try it.”

  Pinocchio remembered what had happened to Otto last night, and he hesitated. “You won’t hurt me, will you, Master?”

  “No,” Geppetto said gently. “I promise you I won’t.”

  Pinocchio turned the latch and opened the panel door.

  Geppetto gasped and took a step forward. Pinocchio’s hand shot up protectively, but Geppetto was too far out of reach.

  “I’m not going to touch you,” Geppetto said, leaning forward. “Just stay where you are. Keep your hands still if you can.”

  Maestro’s wings buzzed with agitation.

  Pinocchio struggled to bring his hands to his lap. “What is it, Master?” He mashed his wooden chin as hard against his wooden chest as he could. He could make out something rounded, with barklike spikes. It didn’t seem to be golden like Otto’s fantom.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this!” Geppetto murmured.

  Pinocchio reached for it but then remembered what had happened to Otto and feared causing the fantom to come loose.

  “My fantom’s not like Otto’s,” Pinocchio said.

  Gep
petto paced in a circle. “It’s not a fantom at all, as far as I can tell.”

  “Then what is in my chest?” Panic began to well in him.

  “A pinecone, Pinocchio. You have a pinecone where your fantom should be.” Geppetto locked eyes with him. “By all logic, you shouldn’t even be alive.”

  Pinocchio didn’t know what to make of this strange news. “But I’m not alive. Am I, Master? I’m just an automa.”

  “You’re a very unusual automa,” Geppetto said. “But you’re right. No, you’re not alive. A poor choice of words. Let me ask: When you were at the bottom of the sea, how did you feel?”

  Maestro laughed a musical note. “Don’t be ridiculous. Automa can’t feel.”

  Geppetto ignored him, waiting for Pinocchio’s answer.

  Pinocchio wasn’t sure what his master was asking. “I suppose I felt frightened. Frightened that I would be stuck there forever.”

  “Yes,” Geppetto mused. “And you might have been. What a dismal existence, to lie forever at the bottom of the sea. Had you ever felt that before? Scared, that is. Frustrated at being stuck somewhere.”

  “I was frustrated that I couldn’t get out of the trunk.”

  “But before then? Before the prisoner?”

  “No, I don’t think I felt much of anything before then,” Pinocchio said.

  Geppetto exchanged a glance with Maestro, but Pinocchio had no idea what they were thinking. “The man in the prison…did he do something bad to me?”

  Geppetto smiled, the first kind smile Pinocchio had seen him give. “No, my dear Pinocchio, he did nothing bad. In fact, I believe Prester John has done something quite wonderful to you.”

  Maestro sprang to Geppetto’s shoulder. “Prester John! You think he sent the automa to you?”

  “Who else?” Geppetto said. “Pinocchio, you said you jumped from the window of a palace into the sea. Was the palace hovering in the sky?”

  “Yes. Above a city with streets of water.”

  “Venice!” Maestro exclaimed, his wings fluttering. “He served in the Fortezza Ducale, the doge’s floating palace! But why is Prester John there?”

  “I can’t say,” Geppetto said. “But if he’s imprisoned, it can’t be good. All the more reason I need to finish that chimera box so we can leave and get some answers. Wait here.”

  Geppetto returned a moment later with the box and a handful of tools. He sat down at the table and continued his work.

  “Master, what’s happened to me?” Pinocchio asked. He was sorry to interrupt Geppetto, but he needed his own answer now. “And who is this Prester John anyway?”

  “Prester John?” Maestro chirped. “The immortal king of Abaton! Don’t you—no, of course you don’t know.”

  “That’s where you’re from, right?” Pinocchio said, pleased that he remembered Maestro mentioning it before. “You’re from Abaton.”

  “But of course,” Maestro sighed. “And what I’d give to be back home, performing again in His Immortal Lordship’s court, rather than stuck in these savage humanlands…”

  “But is Abaton here in the Venetian Empire,” Pinocchio asked, “or in China?”

  “Why do you keep thinking I’m from China?” Maestro chirped. “No, my home is not part of the humanlands.”

  “Abaton is an island far out in the Indian Ocean,” Geppetto said, glancing up from his repairs. “Until the explorer Marco Polo outwitted the sea monster that guards Abaton’s shores, no human had ever seen Abaton. But since then, since Prester John opened trade between Abaton and Venice, our human kingdoms have changed dramatically, none more so than the Venetian Empire.”

  “What do you mean, ‘changed’?” Pinocchio asked.

  “Well, we certainly had nothing like you before,” Geppetto explained. “Automa and all the extraordinary machines our alchemists have designed could never have been created if it weren’t for Abaton’s magic.”

  “Geppetto,” Maestro interrupted. “If this is true and Prester John has been captured by the doge, then Abaton is in danger.”

  “I know,” Geppetto said, reshaping a bent gear. “He should never have come. It was foolish to think he could negotiate with the doge.”

  “Who is this doge?” Pinocchio asked. “You said I came from his floating palace. Is he the king?”

  “More like the tyrant,” Maestro said.

  “Doge is the title for the ruler of the Venetian Empire,” Geppetto said, holding up a gear to inspect his work.

  “But doesn’t the doge like Prester John?” Pinocchio asked. “Doesn’t he like getting magic from Abaton?”

  “It’s complicated,” Geppetto said. “He likes how alchemy has made our empire powerful. But our current doge has a particular dislike for Abatonians—despite the fact that elementals and chimera have lived peacefully with the citizens of our empire since they immigrated to our lands centuries ago. The doge sees them as little more than monsters that have no place in a land meant for humans.”

  “In other words, the doge wants the magic but not the monsters,” Maestro chirped. “And you can’t have one without the other.”

  Pinocchio wasn’t positive what this meant, but he thought it must have something to do with why alchemists used elementals like gnomes whenever they repaired him.

  Before he could ask, Geppetto continued. “The doge has declared the empire’s elementals and half-beasts a slave class. A move that has upset Prester John greatly. The few who have resisted, mostly half-beast runaways…well, the doge’s soldiers have come after them ruthlessly. Forced into lives as outlaws, and never having been a danger to anyone before, these half-beasts have fought back just as ruthlessly. Which is why our leaving San Baldovino is so difficult. The roads aren’t safe.

  “It’s also why”—Geppetto grimaced as he tried to pry loose a bent gear—“I need to finish this chimera box so we can…buy safe passage. We only have three days at the most before Captain Toro will return.”

  His chisel slipped from the gears, nearly stabbing Geppetto’s other hand. “Blast this thing!” he roared. “Why won’t it come loose?”

  He leaped to his feet and marched back into his workshop with the chimera box under his arm, mumbling something about where was a good gnome when you needed one. Once he disappeared behind the curtain, there was an abrupt silence, and then Geppetto growled, “GREAT VESUVIUS!”

  “What is it?” Maestro asked, bounding through the curtain.

  “Airmen!” Geppetto said. “They’re already here!”

  Pinocchio ran into the shop. Through the front window, he saw a man with massive mechanical wings folded across his back out in the street. An instant later, a second airman landed beside him. Both wore red cloaks over red armor, golden-winged lions emblazoned on their chests. They carried muskets.

  The soldiers banged loudly on the door across the street. When an old lady cracked the door, the airmen barged inside.

  “But…but Captain Toro just left yesterday,” Maestro chirped in panic. “You said it would be three days!”

  “Well, obviously we weren’t that lucky. Captain Toro must have met a squadron of airmen on his way to Venice.”

  “They’ll search our shop at any moment!” the cricket shrieked.

  Geppetto looked around in desperation. He dropped the chimera box on the counter and ran to the door, pulling down the shade and turning the sign to CHIUSO.

  “Into the back. Now!”

  “Closing early will only call attention to us,” Maestro said from Geppetto’s shoulder.

  “What else would you suggest?”

  The cricket wagged his antennae. “We have to leave.”

  “I haven’t finished the chimera box! And how far will we get without an armored coach for protection? Besides, even if we snuck over the wall, we wouldn’t get a mile out of town before they’d spot us from the air.”

  “The villa,” Maestro said. “If we could make it to the villa, we might be safe.”

  Geppetto chewed on his mustache as he pondered.


  “What villa?” Pinocchio asked.

  “Quick! The back door.”

  The door opened to an alley. Pinocchio began to follow, but Geppetto pushed him back. “They’re in the alley!”

  “What do we do?” Pinocchio asked.

  A loud banging erupted from the front door. “Open in the name of the imperial doge!”

  Geppetto’s eyes widened. “Hide!”

  “Where?” Pinocchio said.

  “Anywhere!”

  Pinocchio scrambled under the bed as Geppetto and Maestro headed into the shop. Huddled on the dusty floor, Pinocchio could just hear Maestro say, “But they’re after you, Geppetto.”

  “They’ll only know who I am if they discover the boy. If Don Antonio stuck to his story that Pinocchio escaped on his own, they’ll look for the automa. They’ll think he went to find his master.”

  More banging sounded from the door.

  “And when they find him?” Maestro said. “When they discover that Prester John sent the automa to you?”

  “Prester John is clearly in some danger. I owe it to His Immortal Lordship to protect the boy, although why he sent Pinocchio to me is an utter mystery.”

  Then Pinocchio heard his master open the door.

  The pair of airmen pushed inside. Geppetto didn’t recognize the first, an officer wearing gleaming armor adorned with an officer’s insignia on his shoulders. But the other—his armor battered and dusty, the red faded, and the canvas of his wing tattered at the edges—was known to all in San Baldovino.

  Captain Toro.

  The airmen’s massive folded wings scraped the ceiling beams as they marched past Geppetto. “You’re Signore Polendina?” Captain Toro demanded.

  “Yes. How can I help you gentlemen?”

  They peered around the shop suspiciously. “Why are you closed in the middle of the day?”

  “I have a repair to complete,” Geppetto said, “and I’m already late. I couldn’t get any work done with everyone and their neighbor barging in. And if you don’t mind,” he waved a hand to the door, “I need to get busy at once.”

  “We’re looking for an automa,” said the other airman.