The Wooden Prince

by John Claude Bemis

  Pinocchio smiled. He was famous! He was lost in thoughts of glory when he noticed Wiq giving him an odd look.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I wondered what you would do when I showed you that banner.”

  Pinocchio tilted his head curiously. “What I’d do?”

  “You look…proud,” Wiq said.

  Pinocchio shrugged, feeling—yes—proud.

  Wiq pointed at his face. “That! There! What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Pinocchio said, feeling his mouth.

  “You’re smiling. What automa smiles, at least smiles for real? You’re not acting. You’re really smiling.”

  “I suppose,” Pinocchio said.

  “There’s something different about you, automa.” Wiq shook his head. “You’re strange.”

  Pinocchio frowned and felt the wood of his face turn hot. “I’m not strange!”

  “Sure you are,” Wiq said with a laugh. “Automa follow orders. They do what they’re told. But you didn’t leap off that pixie bulb to get hacked apart when Al Mi’raj ordered you to. That’s strange for an automa.”

  If that was strange, then Pinocchio was glad he was strange. He preferred being intact.

  “But Wiq, you’re not an automa,” Pinocchio said, “and you do what you’re told.”

  Wiq’s eyes flashed angrily. “Being a slave and being an automa are not the same thing!”

  Pinocchio wished he could take back his words, wished he hadn’t gotten Wiq mad at him just when the boy was starting to act friendly.

  Wiq turned his stormy gaze out across the city. “My father once told me, ‘We might be slaves, but we’re not puppets of the empire. Think for yourself. Trust your own instincts, and they’ll reward you in turn.’ So yes, I do what I’m told, because that’s how a slave survives. But it doesn’t make me a puppet.”

  “Is that why you hate my kind so much?” Pinocchio asked tentatively. “Because you think automa are just puppets serving the empire?”

  “I hate automa because if it weren’t for automa, I wouldn’t be a slave, nor would any of the rest of my family.”

  “It’s not the automa’s fault,” Pinocchio said.

  “No, but Venice needs chimera slaves like my parents to assemble alchemy contraptions like you, working until they are worked to death, all to help make the empire more powerful. So do I hate your kind? Yes, I do! I hate automa. I hate alchemy. I hate Venice.”

  Pinocchio felt something catch deep in his gears. “Your parents are dead?”

  Wiq’s furry chin was trembling as he gave a quick nod. His narrowed eyes glistened in the moonlight, sharp with sorrow and hatred.

  “I’m sorry that happened to your family, Wiq,” Pinocchio said. “And I’m sorry you hate me. I can understand why.” He turned for the stairs.

  Wiq called to him, “Wait, Pinocchio.” He gave a sigh. “I don’t hate you. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I watched you out there today. You weren’t fighting mindlessly like the other automa. You figured out how to beat Harlequin by tricking him, by thinking for yourself. See?”

  “You mean I wasn’t acting like a puppet?”

  “Exactly!”

  “But what did your father mean about following your instincts?” Pinocchio asked. “How do I do that?”

  Wiq let his hands flop to his sides. “Just listen to your gut.”

  “What’s a gut?”

  “Gut,” Wiq said. “It’s like your stomach.”

  Pinocchio touched his shirt. “I don’t think I have a stomach.”

  Wiq laughed. “It means to listen to that voice deep down inside you that tells you the right thing to do. Do you ever hear a voice like that?”

  Pinocchio wasn’t sure. “Maybe,” he said. “The right thing to me seems to be to find my master.” Yes, he heard that call, and at times like this, it was so urgent it made him feel like his springwork was too tight. “I want more than anything to be with my master.”

  Wiq gave him a curious look. “When you talk about your master, your real master…it’s almost like…you love him. That would be very strange for an automa. How could an automa do that?” He shook his head in disbelief.

  Pinocchio wasn’t sure what to say. Part of him was tempted to pull off his gloves, to show Wiq how he was changing, to show how he was even less like a normal automa than Wiq could possibly imagine. But he didn’t know if he should trust him. What if Wiq saw how his body was turning into flesh and he was horrified? What if he told Al Mi’raj and Bulbin?

  Pinocchio tucked his gloved hands behind his back.

  Wiq rubbed his eyes. “We should probably go back down and get to bed. Oh—well, I guess I should get to bed. You don’t sleep.”

  “No,” Pinocchio said. “But it’s funny, I do feel tired.” He found his mouth opening wide for some reason. He snapped it shut.

  “Did you just yawn?” Wiq laughed.

  “I don’t know,” Pinocchio said. “Is that what that was? I couldn’t stop myself. Strange.”

  “Yes, very strange indeed.” Wiq smiled again at Pinocchio before leading him back down to the cellar.

  The village of Carbone was little more than a dusty ring of buildings on a hilltop, much too small to afford an automa sentry. Hardly the sort of place that even needed one, especially since half the town’s inhabitants were half-beast slaves working in the local factory that assembled automa and imperial war machines.

  By the time Lazuli and Geppetto reached Carbone’s gates, they were starving. It had been a frustrating several days, mostly spent hiding in the woods from the swarms of airmen scouring the countryside. And the Hunter’s Glass, which initially had shown them the direction Pinocchio had gone, suddenly stopped working whenever Geppetto tried to use it. This filled the alchemist with mustache-chewing worry. The Hunter’s Glass did, however, continue to point toward Prester John. And little by little, from one hiding spot to another, Lazuli led them north until their stomachs couldn’t stand another wild root for dinner.

  They hesitated at the gates, where an elderly chimera guard snored at his post. An impressive stream of drool was running down the guard’s curly chin whiskers. He had a goat’s head, with horns so heavy it seemed he might not be able to even lift his head off his chest.

  “Should we just go in?” Lazuli asked. “Or should we wake him?”

  “We should find out if there are airmen around,” Geppetto said.

  “I’d be surprised if that old beast can put two words together,” Maestro chirped.

  Geppetto gave a forceful cough. The guard’s eyes sprang open, and he got stiffly to his hooves, clanking the end of his pike on the ground.

  “Who goes there?” he bleated.

  “Travelers,” Geppetto said.

  The guard plopped back down on his seat.

  Geppetto leaned forward and spoke quietly. “We’re looking for a safe place to get a meal. Are there…any imperial soldiers in this village?”

  The old goat gave Geppetto a suspicious look, then started chewing on something that may have already been in his mouth or might have just been regurgitated.

  He gave a limp wave with the pike. “There’s a tavern across from the well. The gate is open during daylight hours. Ye can come and go as ye please. Move on.”

  Geppetto sighed and nodded to Lazuli. “We’ll just have to risk it.”

  Lazuli didn’t like this idea, and didn’t much like being ignored by the guard. “He didn’t answer your question. Let me handle this.”

  “I’m not sure that’s best, Princess,” Geppetto whispered.

  She approached the guard anyway. “Kinsman, my companion asked you a simple question. We’re having to travel discreetly. Could you be so kind as to tell us if there are any airmen in this village?”

  “No,” the guard said.

  “No there aren’t or no you can’t tell me?”

  The guard stopped chewing. “No,” he repeated mor
e slowly, to emphasize his irritation.

  Geppetto took Lazuli’s arm, but she shrugged him off. “Kinsman, I’m a fellow Abatonian, as you can plainly see. Is it too much to ask for a little courtesy?”

  “I’m not your kin, lassie,” the guard said. “I don’t know ye nor what business yer mixed up in. Maybe yer part of some outlaw gang.” He cut an eye at Geppetto. “Maybe yer a spy for the airmen. My orders are to watch the gate, not to answer questions.”

  Lazuli scowled imperiously at the guard. “Whatever happened to Abatonian hospitality?”

  “We’re not in Abaton,” the guard said. “This is the Venetian Empire. There’s no hospitality to be found for our kind. Move on, before ye get us both in trouble.”

  Geppetto pulled her away. “Let’s find a hot meal.” Lazuli reluctantly followed him into the village.

  It wasn’t hard to find the tavern. There was only one well in the whole village, and every building was across from it.

  Before they entered, Geppetto said, “Maestro, check inside.”

  The cricket hopped over to a window. “No soldiers in there. Looks safe enough.”

  Geppetto pulled his hood over his head. “If anyone asks, you’re my elemental servant.”

  “Servant?” Lazuli scoffed.

  “We don’t have any fealty papers to show you belong to me, so we’ll have to hope nobody asks for them. Give me your sword to hold.”

  After reluctantly handing it over, Lazuli followed Geppetto inside to a table at the back corner. The few other patrons, all human, gathered at the bar. Two chimera—an ape and a frog—were clearing dishes and mopping the floor.

  Geppetto ordered bowls of polenta for them and cups of watery red wine. The innkeeper and the other patrons paid them little mind. They were busy discussing a performer named the Magpie. Apparently half the countryside was journeying to Siena to see his next show.

  Lazuli was still fuming. “I can’t understand why he wouldn’t let us know whether there were soldiers here or not.”

  Geppetto gave a wry smile. “Your people here live under very different conditions than in Abaton.”

  “A real Abatonian would never stand for that sort of rudeness,” she said. “If that old goat had only known who I was. Father risked everything coming here to try to help free his kind.”

  “For his kind, Abaton is an utter mystery,” Geppetto said. “His ancestors immigrated to Venice so long ago, they’ve forgotten their Abatonian ways. And any hope of ever being free, of ever returning to their homeland, seems impossible.”

  Lazuli frowned and picked at her food. Someone at the bar made a joke, and another gave a laugh that sounded more like a croak. The frog chimera, clearly. Why had Father ever thought he could rescue them? Why had he been so foolish as to come here?

  Maestro said, “Your Highness, share more news from Abaton. I miss the Moonlit Court. Are the gardens still in bloom?”

  “The butterfly orchids were just releasing their blossoms when I left,” she said wistfully.

  “Oh,” Maestro moaned with pleasure. “Such a sight to behold. I composed a piece about them last season. Are the flowers fluttering all over the palace?”

  “And getting into everything.” She smiled. “Naughty little things.”

  Lazuli described the snaking starflowers that grew up vines all day, reaching higher than the palace walls, only to burst at nightfall into shimmering pyrotechnic displays. The fountains that seemed to defy all logic, water trickling up and collecting on canopies and then falling in cooling mists.

  As the group at the bar laughed, argued, and gossiped, Lazuli found herself pleasantly lost in talking about Abaton, and was grateful to have a few moments to not worry about hiding and searching for food and avoiding airmen.

  The moment didn’t last. Just as Lazuli was describing the plans for the coming summer solstice processional, an airman burst through the door.

  The tavern fell silent. Lazuli had to clutch the table to keep from floating up.

  “Captain Toro,” Maestro whispered before disappearing under Geppetto’s cloak.

  As Geppetto adjusted his hood over his head, Lazuli realized that they were fortunate Geppetto was sitting with his back to the airman. Unfortunately, there was no easy way out the door without walking right past the captain.

  Lazuli kept her head down but her eyes on the airman. His wings—which, along with his shiny helmet, looked much newer than the rest of his battered attire—were folded against his back, and his armor creaked as he approached the bar and rested his musket against the wood.

  There was something scary about this Captain Toro. Something in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. Geppetto had told her how he had twice escaped from Captain Toro. She wondered if it was shame or desperation that gave the airman that volatile look.

  “Captain Toro,” the innkeeper said in greeting, wiping a cup with his apron before setting it on the bar. “Haven’t seen you in these parts in quite a time. What brings you back?”

  “Just making the rounds,” Captain Toro said, his voice strained.

  The men at the bar quietly sipped their drinks, seeming to sense the captain’s dangerous demeanor. The pair of chimera shifted nervously, making a bigger show of cleaning up.

  Geppetto swirled his food absently with his spoon, but Lazuli couldn’t miss his palpable tension.

  The innkeeper poured Captain Toro a glass of wine. “Staying long enough for a bite?”

  Captain Toro gave a gruff nod.

  “Coming up.” The innkeeper disappeared into the back.

  Captain Toro lifted his cup and surveyed the room. The frog chimera mopped the same spot over and over, but the airman ignored him.

  One of the men at the bar cleared his throat before saying, “Heard there have been Flying Lions patrolling our parts lately. That true, Captain?”

  “We’re looking for a man traveling with an automa,” Toro said in a low, gravelly voice.

  “Seen no automa around here,” the man said with a nervous chuckle.

  Lazuli wondered if they might be able to get up and just walk out, but Geppetto seemed to read her eagerness and made a small wave with his hand over the table.

  The innkeeper returned with a plate of food for the captain. He watched him eat a few moments before saying, “The men say the fire eater in Siena has a good show going on. A high-flying performer.”

  “I don’t go to the theater,” Captain Toro said between bites.

  “I suppose you don’t,” the innkeeper said. “Busy man like you.”

  One of the men said, “Captain, you think there’s a way to fly without wings? You ever hear of any alchemy like that?”

  “No,” Captain Toro said, uninterested.

  Another of the men said, “Maybe it’s like the imperial warships. The ones that float.”

  “Or the doge’s fortress,” said another.

  “Yeah, like that. How do you think the alchemists do that?”

  “Well…” Captain Toro paused to take another bite.

  The men sat in rapt attention, an anxious silence brought on by the quiet, scary way Captain Toro spoke.

  Captain Toro swallowed his food. “All alchemical technology has its origins in the elemental magic of Abaton. So lighter-than-air inventions like floating masonry and my armor”—he clapped a hand to his lion-emblazoned breastplate—“all come from blue-fairy magic.”

  Geppetto’s eyes met Lazuli’s across the table.

  “Fairies,” Captain Toro continued, his words slow and stilted, “being elemental creatures of the air, are capable of manipulating the weight of otherwise heavy materials.” He paused before adding, “Isn’t that right, fairy?”

  The men at the bar looked perplexed. Captain Toro took a sip of wine.

  “What’s that, Captain?” the innkeeper asked.

  “I was asking the fairy lass over there.” He turned slowly toward Lazuli. “Am I correct?”

  The innkeeper and the men all looked at her. Lazuli tried to master
her expression. The captain couldn’t know who she really was. She could pretend to be an elemental servant. Of course she could. There was no reason to fear the captain, except that she didn’t have fealty papers. What was most important was to distract Captain Toro from Geppetto.

  She rose lightly from her seat. Geppetto gave a little shake of his head to stop her, but she ignored him. She could handle this.

  “For the most part, you are correct, sir.”

  Captain Toro’s stool barked against the wooden floor as he stood. “Explain.”

  Lazuli approached the bar. “I can’t make you lighter than air. I can’t transform the living. That’s why you have to wear alchemied armor in order to fly. But—”

  She walked around Captain Toro, drawing his attention away from Geppetto. All eyes followed her. She picked up Captain Toro’s wine cup with a smile.

  “If I wanted to make your wine float…”

  A breeze whirled around the bar, tousling their hair. Beads of bloodred wine rose from the cup. The men laughed with surprise, all except Captain Toro.

  “Are some objects easier to levitate than others?” the innkeeper asked.

  “That’s it exactly,” Lazuli said. “I chose the wine and not the entire mug, because wine is relatively insubstantial. It’s a liquid. It’s easy to infuse with air. Solid objects are harder. This is why alchemists can do it much better in their laboratories.”

  “Very interesting, fairy,” Captain Toro said. He cleared his throat with a dry cough. “Your fealty papers, please.”

  A jolt of panic ran through Lazuli.

  “Oh,” she said, pretending to search inside her cloak. “Yes. Of course.”

  “This area,” Captain Toro said, tapping the bar, “is notorious as a hideout for ungrateful outlaw vermin.”

  The frog croaked, his throat swelling like it might pop, and smoothed out his fealty papers onto a table as if saying he was grateful he wasn’t vermin. It sickened Lazuli. These so-called outlaws only wanted to be free, only wanted to stand up to a corrupt empire.

  “Do you work in this village, fairy? Is that your master over there?”

  “Um, no,” Lazuli said, continuing to search her pockets. “That’s my uncle. Our alchemist master is…at the show in Siena. He sent us with a package to deliver here—”