The Wooden Prince

by John Claude Bemis

  Lazuli cleared her throat and jutted her chin. “I was able to get away in time. I hid under a piece of wreckage. My mother is a sylph, so I can’t sink on water. And my father, being who he is, wasn’t harmed by the explosion, although the others…”

  She closed her eyes to compose herself. It wasn’t proper to show this sort of emotion. Geppetto put his hand gently to her shoulder.

  Lazuli opened her eyes and continued. “Father was carried away by some sort of alchemy contraptions in the form of winged cats.”

  “Flying Lions,” Geppetto said.

  “Be glad they didn’t find you, Your Highness,” Maestro assured her.

  “I wish they had,” Lazuli said fiercely. “I’d tear every single one of them into a million pieces.”

  Geppetto blinked with surprise.

  Lazuli composed herself. “You’re an alchemist, Master Geppetto. What I don’t understand is how the doge could capture my father. What terrible alchemy devices could do that?”

  “Your father might be immortal,” Geppetto said, “but he’s not omnipotent. He could survive that attack, but there’s a weakness all Abatonians share, a weakness that I now realize even your father has. It’s no device or alchemical creation. It’s a simple substance. Lead.”

  “Lead?” Lazuli said. “What’s lead?”

  “A metal found in the humanlands, but not in Abaton. Lead—like iron, or any other base metal—disrupts anything magical. It would only take a simple touch of lead for any Abatonian—or automa for that matter, since alchemical technology operates on Abatonian magic—to become completely helpless.”

  “So the doge is using lead to hold my father—” Lazuli began.

  At that moment, a trio of airmen came soaring over the treetops.

  “Get back!” Geppetto growled, pushing Lazuli behind a tree. They flattened themselves against the trunk. Lazuli drew a sword from under her cloak.

  “Do you know how to use that, Princess?” Geppetto said.

  “Most certainly,” she said. “The master of ceremonies in my father’s court gave me lessons—”

  “It won’t do us any good against them,” Geppetto said, pointing up. He shook his head and mumbled, “I can barely take care of myself. And now I have the daughter of Prester John to worry about.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Master Geppetto,” Lazuli said, scowling before she could stop herself. “I’m quite capable, I’ll have you know.”

  Geppetto gave an apologetic look. “I’m sure you are, Your Highness. It’s just that your being here multiplies our danger.”

  “Danger from those airmen?” she said. “Are they pursuing you?”

  “One of them, Captain Toro, nearly captured us before he fell into the ravine with my automa,” Geppetto said. “If they fished Toro out, he’ll have told them we’re nearby.”

  “Can those airmen even get down into this forest with those ungainly wings?” Lazuli asked.

  “Not easily,” Geppetto said, scanning the tree canopy for the airmen.

  “But their Lions can,” Maestro said, his voice trembling.

  “They have Flying Lions?” Lazuli asked. Her bravado from before was not holding up against the prospect of confronting actual mechanical lions.

  Overhead a roar erupted. It was an unnerving sound, equal parts mechanical and monstrous, and it sent a chill through Lazuli’s core.

  “Master Geppetto?” she said, unable to stop the annoying note of worry that made its way into her voice.

  “Be calm,” Geppetto said.

  “I’m calm!” she snapped.

  He sighed. “We just need to wait for—”

  Branches cracked up in the leaf canopy some ways off. Something heavy and wooden exploded. Lazuli realized with sudden, icy certainty that this was the sound of one of those terrible Lions barreling through a tree trunk. Blessed shores of Abaton, that thing was huge!

  Geppetto hoisted Lazuli to her feet.

  “We can’t outrun them!” Maestro chirped.

  The series of exploding trees grew louder.

  “We’ve got to find somewhere to hide!” Geppetto growled. “Now!”

  They ran. Lazuli’s weightless steps barely rustled the tops of fallen leaves, but Geppetto sounded like a hippogriff as he raced through the underbrush after her.

  An airman overhead shouted, “They’re down here!” He dove into the treetops, snagging on branches and cursing as he descended. Another airman was trying to follow him, but they were having trouble breaking through the canopy.

  Lazuli spun around, desperately searching for a way to go, but they were cut off.

  “There they are!” one of the airmen shouted.

  They had to find a place to hide. She had an idea. It wasn’t the safest of options, but what else were they to do? Closing her eyes, she focused all her elemental powers.

  A cyclone-force wind rushed through the forest, whipping up leaves and rustling the branches. Geppetto put an arm across his face, trying to block the dirt and debris battering him. Lazuli pushed him flat on his stomach, and he gave a gasp. She dropped across his back.

  “What are—” Geppetto began.

  But Lazuli was drawing the air like a funnel into the ground beneath them. The earth gave way. Geppetto sucked in a surprised breath before submerging into the crumbling sinkhole. She hoped he was good at holding his breath. An instant later, they were covered by dirt, with only the glow of her eyes casting any light. It trickled in Lazuli’s ears and sifted unpleasantly through her hair. She’d never actually tried this before and decided she never wanted to again. But for now, it was their best hope.

  Even buried, she could hear faint voices shouting at first and then talking to one another in puzzlement, though their words were masked by the mass of earth overhead until the airmen came closer to their hiding place.

  “…how’d they get away?” she heard one airman say.

  “…Toro said the automa leaped at him like a bird.…Maybe they flew?”

  There was muffled laughter. “…flying automa! The man’s gone mad.”

  “…they can’t have gone too far.…where’s the Lion off to?”

  Geppetto grunted and wriggled.

  “Be calm,” she whispered.

  The voices above faded away. Lazuli waited. A few moments more, just to make sure they didn’t come back. Soon Geppetto began to grunt more urgently, and she knew they had to risk getting out before he suffocated.

  She blew a long breath, and the dirt loosened around them. Geppetto pushed up with his arms, forcing her to the surface. He gulped for air.

  “Wait,” she whispered. “They might still be here.”

  Partially hidden by dirt and leaves, she glanced around and listened. The voices were faint now, more distant. Then she heard the cracking of branches, as the airmen and the Flying Lion broke through the treetops and were gone.

  Lazuli stood from the hole with ease. Geppetto, however, had to pry himself up, spitting and brushing dirt from his face and hair. He staggered to his feet, clumps of earth peeling away from his filthy clothes.

  Lazuli’s clothes were spotless. She was glad to be a sylph. She brushed back her hood, letting her long blue hair fall about her shoulders.

  “That was madness,” Geppetto panted.

  “We didn’t get caught, did we?” Lazuli said. “I told you I was quite capable.”

  “Yes, so I see,” Geppetto said. “Next time you’re feeling capable, please don’t smother me.”

  Lazuli smiled. She hoped this had proved to Geppetto that she didn’t need to be treated like a child.

  Maestro came down from wherever he’d been hiding and landed on Geppetto’s sleeve. “Your Highness!” he chirped. “Are you all right? Are you injured?”

  “I’m perfectly fine, Master Cricket.”

  “I’m fine as well,” Geppetto grumbled. “I appreciate your concern.”

  “Well, of course you are, you indestructible old goat,” Maestro snapped. “But we have to p
rotect Princess Lazuli.”

  Lazuli narrowed her eyes, trying to stay composed as she’d been taught. She might not like being treated like a helpless princess, but Maestro was one of her subjects. She was used to her subjects being annoyingly overprotective.

  “Shall we continue the search for my father?” Lazuli asked.

  “You’re searching in the wrong place,” Geppetto said, shaking out his cloak. “He’s imprisoned in Venice. How did you wind up way out here, anyway?”

  “I’m not searching in the wrong place,” Lazuli said, fishing the Hunter’s Glass out from beneath her collar. The glass globe was attached to a necklace, and she held it out for Geppetto to see.

  “What is that?” Geppetto asked.

  “Your Highness,” Maestro reprimanded him. “You should address the princess of Abaton as Your Highness.”

  “Forgive me, Your Highness,” Geppetto said.

  Lazuli waved her hand. “It’s not necessary, Master Geppetto. This is a Hunter’s Glass. My father gave it to me for my last birthday. And fortunately, I brought it with me on our voyage, because it’s now leading me to him. You see that light that just formed on the side? That means that Father is that way.” She pointed into the thick of the forest.

  “But why would he be out here in Tuscany?” Maestro asked Geppetto.

  “The doge might be moving him,” Geppetto replied. “If that’s the case, we have a better chance of rescuing him. How far away is he, Your Highness?”

  “Unfortunately, the Hunter’s Glass doesn’t show how far,” she said. “Just that he’s in that direction.”

  “So he could be in Siena or Lapland for all we know?” Geppetto said.

  “I don’t know where either of those places is,” Lazuli said, “but I think we can assume he’s being moved somewhere here in the Venetian Empire. In fact, the light has been growing brighter lately, which makes me think I might be getting close.”

  Geppetto twisted his mustache as he thought for a moment. “I agree we need to find His Immortal Lordship, but first we need to find Pinocchio. He’s lost and surely searching for me. I…we’ll need him.”

  “Who is Pinocchio?” Lazuli asked.

  “My automa.”

  “Are automa those bizarre humanlike contraptions you alchemists make?” Lazuli asked.

  “Pinocchio is not bizarre!” Maestro said, and then, seeming to remember who he was speaking to, began bowing his antennae. “That is, he’s not bizarre, Your Highness. Well, maybe a little, but Pinocchio’s not like the rest of those empty-headed automa.”

  Lazuli was surprised that one of her fellow Abatonians would defend an automa. “He?” she asked. “You refer to this automa device as a he?”

  “If you’d only met Pinocchio, Your Highness, you’d understand,” Maestro said. “He’s…well, he’s wonderful.”

  “Your father has done something to Pinocchio,” Geppetto said.

  “My father?” Why would her father tinker with some alchemy contraption?

  “Yes, he sent Pinocchio to me,” Geppetto said, “from his prison cell in the Fortezza Ducale. The boy is changing somehow. He’s more aware than a normal automa. More perceptive and sensitive.”

  “And he has exquisite musical tastes,” Maestro added.

  Lazuli felt there was something else Geppetto was not telling her about this automa. She realized he must be able to see her skepticism. She tried to master her expression.

  “Why would my father send you this automa?”

  “For one, to help rescue him,” Geppetto said.

  “For one?” she asked. “Why else?”

  Geppetto hesitated.

  Maestro piped up instead. “Your Highness, Pinocchio seems to be turning into a real human boy.”

  “What?” Lazuli gasped. “Impossible!”

  “Not for His Immortal Lordship,” the cricket said. “Your father is capable of the most extraordinary things.”

  Lazuli tried not to grimace. It was true. Her father was powerful, the commander of untold magic, and the immortal king and protector of Abaton. But it was ordinary things—like being an attentive father—that he seemed incapable of handling. Besides the occasional royal dinner or passing in the halls of the Moonlit Court, the most time she’d ever spent with her father was on their voyage to the Venetian Empire. She was just another of his countless mortal children who would one day grow old and die while His Immortal Lordship remained Abaton’s eternal ruler.

  But she supposed Maestro was right. If anyone could enchant an automa to seem like a real human boy, her father could.

  “You see, Your Highness,” Maestro continued gingerly, “Geppetto’s family was murdered by the doge.”

  Lazuli winced. She struggled for how to respond to this, and only managed “I’m so sorry, Master Geppetto.”

  Geppetto gave a gentle smile, tinted with sadness. “His Immortal Lordship, given how many of his own children have died over the centuries, would be particularly sensitive to the loss of a child. Look at how he showed compassion even to the doge after Prince Ignazio died. I believe your father intends for Pinocchio not only to help me rescue him, but also…to be my son.”

  All manner of thoughts and emotions ran through Lazuli. This was certainly not a side of her father she had ever seen. But it was a side she wanted to discover. If only she could rescue him.

  “What about the Hunter’s Glass?” Maestro squeaked. “Could it lead us to Pinocchio, Your Highness?”

  “Yes,” Geppetto said. “Good thinking, Maestro!”

  “It might,” Lazuli said. The automa was really more an object than a person, despite whatever charms her father had put on it. She slipped the Hunter’s Glass from around her neck and handed it to Geppetto. “Just visualize your automa.”

  Geppetto cupped his hand around the Hunter’s Glass and closed his eyes. An instant later, a light formed on the side of the glass.

  “That way,” Lazuli said, peering into the thick of the forest. “And fortunately, my father seems to be held somewhere in that direction as well. Master Geppetto, the airmen said your automa could fly. Is that true?”

  “He’s wearing seven-league boots. Poorly functioning ones, but enough that Toro imagined he could fly.”

  “Well, we have that in our favor,” Lazuli said. “If they’re looking for a man traveling with a flying automa, we hopefully won’t look so conspicuous. Shall we go?”

  “Yes,” Geppetto said. “But we still need to avoid being spotted. I only hope we find Pinocchio before anyone else does.”

  Since saving Captain Toro from the river, Pinocchio wasn’t thinking clearly. He wasn’t really thinking at all. The encounter had left him as close to a normal mindless automa as he had been since Prester John gave him the pinecone.

  He sat on the floor of the donkey cart, staring blankly at the forest passing by. He barely noticed when a patrol of airmen soared overhead, prompting Rampino’s men to hide beneath their cloaks. The next day, Pinocchio faintly noticed when Rampino’s men left the forest for the open countryside. Their cloaks transformed, the green foliage on the fabric becoming dusty brown grass, not unlike the grass rolling across the hills all around.

  Pinocchio sat in the jostling cart. The unrelenting pull of the fealty charm made him desperate to find his master again. The more ground Rampino covered, the farther Pinocchio got from Geppetto, the worse the fealty charm pulled on him. It focused his dull thoughts on his master.

  As the cart bumped over a rocky patch of road, a memory bubbled its way through the thick mist filling his thoughts. Pinocchio suddenly recalled the last thing he had asked his master: I’m meant to be your son?

  Geppetto wasn’t just his master. He was going to be his father.

  In that instant, melodic bird sounds, loud and riotous, filled his ears. He felt the warm wind brush his cheeks. Pinocchio sat bolt upright with a gasp.

  “Master Geppetto!” he murmured. “Father…where are you?”

  “Quiet,” Rampino growled, threateni
ng to poke him with the sword.

  Pinocchio stared and stared, hoping to see his father, and knowing they had gone hopelessly far.

  When they reached the walls of Siena, the guards waved them through cheerfully. “Light load, Rampino,” one called, nodding to Pinocchio.

  Rampino smiled his crooked-toothed smile. “Yes, but we’ve got a fine one for the fire eater this time.”

  The donkey cart stopped in a square with flapping banners showing, oddly enough, a snail. Rampino deposited his men at a stable and unlocked the cage to let Pinocchio out.

  “Follow me,” he growled. “And no funny business or you’ll feel my sword’s iron.”

  Pinocchio stepped down, his right foot giving a little spring that caused him to stumble. He was better at controlling the seven-league boots, but after all the riding, he had to remember how to steady the boots’ tendency to bounce.

  Rampino marched him through the crowded streets of neighborhoods with banners showing a panther, and deeper in the city, past banners with an eagle, until they came to an empty sliver of an alleyway. Pinocchio’s captor rolled aside a barrel and they descended a hidden set of stairs. At the bottom, Rampino rapped at a cellar door. The loud clanking of hammers on metal sounded from somewhere deep inside. Finally, a small panel in the door opened and a dark eye peered out.

  “I’ve got a new actor for Al Mi’raj’s theater,” Rampino said.

  As the panel closed and a series of locks began to click, Pinocchio desperately wanted to run, but before he could get up the nerve, the door opened. A boy in tattered leggings and a loose shirt stood before them.

  No, not a boy, or at least not a human one. He was covered in fine, tawny fur and had long ears poking from the sides of his head, and was that a tail? This boy was a half-beast! He wasn’t so terrifying. But Pinocchio had no time to stare before Rampino shoved him forward.

  The room at the end of the long hall ahead glowed like an oven. Rampino opened his cloak and wiped his forehead. They entered a workshop filled with half a dozen open pits of burning salamanders. Tiny bearded workers, who looked more like molded clumps of earth than men, were busy with hammers and tools. Gnomes, Pinocchio realized.