The Wooden Prince

by John Claude Bemis

  Pinocchio spun around and batted Cinnabar’s hand away before clapping a hand over the back of his neck.

  The djinni snarled a mouthful of fangs. “Don’t touch me again, puppet.”

  Pinocchio put a hand to his sword. Lightning fast, Cinnabar raised the crossbow pistol.

  “All right! All right!” Mezmer said, stepping between them. “There’s no need for all that.”

  “Agreed,” Lazuli snapped. “Put down your weapons.”

  Cinnabar looked at her contritely and then lowered the crossbow. “Forgive me, Your Highness.”

  Lazuli ignored him, her gaze fixed on Pinocchio. “What’s happened to this automa?”

  Pinocchio frowned at her. She could see the hurt and anger in his eyes. He clearly didn’t want to be called an automa.

  Mezmer put her arm warmly around Pinocchio’s shoulder. “Dear Pinocchio is flesh and blood now, Princess. He’s not an automa. He’s one of us.”

  Cinnabar gave a skeptical snort.

  “It’s true,” Sop said, nudging Pinocchio in the ribs. “This ol’ scratching post of mine sleeps. He breathes. He eats—”

  “A lot!” Mezmer added.

  Sop gave a disgusted look. “He even—”

  Lazuli held up her hands to stop him right there. “Are you telling me…he’s human? He’s now a complete living human boy?”

  They looked at each other and then at Pinocchio to let him answer.

  He shrugged. “I’m not an automa anymore.”

  Lazuli couldn’t hold her princess poise any longer. She sputtered, “Master Geppetto told me…well, that you were changing. I knew Father had put some charm on you. But this…this is not what I expected at all! You seem so…so…”

  “Alive?” Pinocchio said. “I am alive.”

  “Ridiculous,” Cinnabar sniffed.

  Pinocchio was searching Lazuli’s face, obviously desperate to see if she also found it ridiculous. Something about his expression stirred a memory.

  When she had been younger, she had been allowed to play with the children of the noble families who visited the Moonlit Court, leading them in games of hide-and-seek in the palace gardens or pretending to be the Celestial Knights of old. But then, after her mother died, her father began to expect her to act differently around their guests. No more silliness. No more cavorting about the flower beds with the other children. She was the daughter of His Immortal Lordship, the protector and king of Abaton. She was to act like a proper princess.

  She remembered when a distant cousin she hadn’t seen in many years had visited from Mist Cities. Her cousin had asked if they could go chase pixies around the trifle-tree orchards, and Lazuli had said she didn’t play childish games anymore. Her cousin had given her a look—not unlike the one Pinocchio was fixing her with now—that seemed to want to know if she was a friend or not.

  Though it had wounded Lazuli deeply to see her cousin’s face change as she realized Lazuli was not her playmate but the princess of Abaton, Lazuli had known she had to obey her father’s wishes. He was Prester John, and she would not let him down. Not then, and not now.

  She turned from Pinocchio to the undine. “Zingaro, I need to go after my father.”

  “Your Highness,” the undine replied, sinking a little lower in the water. “We are but slaves of the empire. We have no means of leaving Venice. Even if we did, how would you get past the Deep One, who guards the waters off Abaton? The doge has your father to help him pass the sea monster. But you…”

  Zingaro looked lost as to how to finish this sentence politely, but Lazuli knew what he would have said if she hadn’t been Prester John’s daughter. She had nothing. She was just a princess, to be protected and treated with royal respect, not someone to be counted on for a daring rescue mission. Her father would have thought the same thing, had he been here.

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness,” Zingaro added. “But this is impossible.”

  “It isn’t impossible for her,” Pinocchio said.

  Lazuli turned to the boy, surprised by the determined look on his face.

  “Oh, no,” Sop murmured. “Don’t get him started on his impossible speech again.”

  Lazuli appraised Pinocchio. “You know how I can rescue my father?”

  “No,” Pinocchio said. “But I’ll help you find a way. My father needs me as well. I’ll do anything to help him. I have to! And I want to save your father too. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Prester John. Geppetto wouldn’t want me as his son if your father hadn’t changed me.”

  How curious that the boy felt grateful to her father. That didn’t seem like something an automa would think. And his reason for wanting to help Geppetto…This wasn’t automa loyalty. This was something else entirely. She had seen it in Geppetto’s face when he spoke of Pinocchio. She could see it in Pinocchio’s expression now. They genuinely loved each other. It was as simple as that.

  A spear of hurt ran through Lazuli. All her life, she had obeyed her father, played the part of the good princess, but for what? Did he love her as Geppetto loved Pinocchio? She wanted that more than anything.

  “Yes,” Lazuli said, giving a brisk nod. “Our fathers need us.”

  The smallest smile broke on Pinocchio’s face.

  Lazuli forced her eyes away from his. “There has to be a way. Maybe we could steal a boat.”

  “Your Highness,” Cinnabar said. “No boat would be swift enough to catch up to flying imperial warships.”

  “We’ll steal a warship, then,” Pinocchio said.

  “Why don’t you just tame a Flying Lion and ride on its back?” Cinnabar said.

  “Would that work?” Pinocchio asked.

  Cinnabar rolled his eyes. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “What about a flying carpet?” Zingaro said.

  Excitement rose in Lazuli. Now, this seemed a possibility. Sylph travelers used such carpets back in Abaton, although her father had never allowed her to fly on one.

  “Zingaro, you know well enough that all the ones in the empire have been destroyed,” Cinnabar said. “To keep the sylph slaves from escaping.”

  “But Princess Lazuli could make one,” Zingaro said, waving a webbed hand.

  Lazuli had no idea how, but maybe the others could show her.

  “No!” Maestro chirped. “No! No! No! She’d have to…No, she can’t. As her subject and representative of the Moonlit Court, I have to insist. Not the princess!”

  “Why couldn’t I?” she demanded.

  “Well…do you know how they’re made, Your Highness?” Cinnabar asked, tapping his yellow fingers together uneasily.

  “No,” Lazuli replied.

  “It requires weaving a sylph’s hair into the fabric,” Cinnabar said. “Sylphs here in the empire are required by law to keep their hair long. If a sylph slave is found to have cut their hair, it’s assumed they have done so to try to make a carpet in order to escape. They risk arrest or worse.”

  “I’m not a sylph slave.”

  “Of course you aren’t, Your Highness,” Cinnabar said. “What I mean is…you’d have to cut off all your hair. It wouldn’t be proper for the daughter of His Immortal Lordship of Abaton to—”

  Lazuli drew her sword. She had gone halfway across the Venetian Empire and back trying to rescue her father. She had faced Flying Lions and mad airmen. She wasn’t going to let something like an unseemly haircut stand in her way now.

  She swiftly cut a handful of the long blue locks from the side of her head. There was a collective gasp. Cinnabar looked like he might start spitting lava.

  “Your Highness!” Maestro hopped back and forth from one of Pinocchio’s shoulders to the other in a complete panic.

  Lazuli dropped the tangle to the floor and collected another handful of hair from the other side of her head, raising her sword. “I’m not as vain as you might think. As Pinocchio said, I’ll do whatever is necessary to rescue our fathers.”

  She sliced through the hair, leaving behind a jagged patch.


  The only one not staring at her in horror was Pinocchio. He was grinning—a wide, approving grin.

  The next morning, after Cinnabar and Zingaro had departed for their masters’ workshops, Pinocchio continued work with the others on the flying carpet. They wove Lazuli’s long strands into a tattered rug they’d taken from the upstairs hall. Mezmer told the princess that the three of them were quite capable of finishing the carpet, but Lazuli insisted on helping.

  “The sooner we finish,” she said, sending the needle and thin strand of her hair back and forth through the carpet, “the sooner we can leave.”

  “As you wish, Your Highness,” Mezmer said.

  Pinocchio thought that Mezmer was acting strangely, not her usual relaxed self at all. While Sop wasn’t doting on the princess quite as much as Mezmer, he was obviously keeping his sarcasm to a minimum. And Maestro was constantly watching Lazuli, constantly offering to play her another song.

  “Which one would you like to hear, Your Highness?”

  Lazuli gave a polite smile. “Any of them will be fine, Maestro.”

  “How about the Mist Cities Sonata?”

  “That would be lovely,” Lazuli said, trying to concentrate on the weaving.

  “Or if you’d prefer, I could play—”

  Pinocchio dropped his needle. “Just play any song!”

  Maestro gave him a withering look. “No need to be grumpy. I just thought Princess Lazuli would enjoy some music as she worked. I thought you enjoyed my music too.” Maestro turned away from him and started his sonata.

  “I do,” Pinocchio murmured. Glancing up from his work, he thought Lazuli gave him a slight smirk, but an instant later she had her polite princess expression back on, as she continued sewing.

  Pinocchio couldn’t figure this princess out. It was as if she had two sides. One side was the royal daughter of Prester John, who commanded absolute respect from her subjects with that haughty jut of her chin. But there was another side that Pinocchio glimpsed too. A flicker of annoyance when Cinnabar groveled and bowed. A flash of something fierce when she spoke of her father. And when she ran her fingers through her spiky new haircut—which looked an even brighter blue now that it was short—she seemed concerned.

  He wondered if all girls were this complicated.

  “Mezmer,” Lazuli asked, clearing her throat, “how long have you and Sop been…well…?”

  “Been bandits?” Sop asked.

  Mezmer cut her eyes at him.

  “I was going to say, been free of your bondage,” Lazuli replied.

  “We escaped from our work gang here in Venice many years ago, Your Highness,” Mezmer said. “I couldn’t stomach serving a corrupt empire. A knight only serves a just ruler and a just society.”

  Lazuli raised an eyebrow. “A knight, are you?”

  Sop chuckled. “Mez fancies herself a true Abatonian defender, a knight of the Celestial Brigade.”

  Mezmer lowered her snout. Pinocchio had never seen her act so shy.

  “I had no idea I was being joined by a noble knight,” Lazuli said, without the slightest trace of mockery. “I’m honored to have your service, Lady Mezmer.”

  Mezmer was practically glowing. She leaped to her feet. “My spear is pledged to you, Your Highness.”

  “I thank you,” Lazuli said.

  Sop and Pinocchio exchanged a look. The cat rolled his one eye.

  “Princess Lazuli,” Mezmer said, fumbling for the words. “When…well, if we are able to save His Immortal Lordship and reach Abaton, do you think…that I might be permitted to join the Celestial Brigade?”

  Lazuli frowned. “I’m sorry to inform you, Lady Mezmer, that the Celestial Brigade no longer exists. It was disbanded centuries ago.”

  “Oh,” Mezmer said, sagging noticeably. She slumped back down and picked up her needle. “What happened to it?”

  “Abaton has been a peaceful island for ages,” Lazuli said. “There’s no war, no bandits—”

  Sop gave a cough, like he was getting a hair ball.

  “No threat that has needed the Celestial Brigade’s defending,” Lazuli continued. “I suppose my father felt the brigade was no longer necessary.”

  Mezmer sewed in silence. Lazuli looked sadly from Sop to Pinocchio.

  The cat shrugged. “At least you can say I was wrong, Mez. I always thought your uncle made those stories up, but you were right.”

  When Mezmer didn’t reply, Pinocchio felt a pang in his chest. Mezmer was hiding it well enough, but he knew how upset she must be to have her dream dashed.

  “I suppose,” Lazuli began, “Abaton is indeed in danger again. If ever there were a need for a knight of the Celestial Brigade, I would say it is now. As the princess of Abaton and the daughter of His Immortal Lordship, I declare that you, Lady Mezmer, are the first in the renewed order of the Celestial Brigade. May your spear and your courage bring peace and safety again to Abaton’s shores.”

  Mezmer looked up, a fierce and determined expression on her fox face.

  “Thank you, my princess!” She began sewing as fast as her needle could fly.

  When Cinnabar and Zingaro returned that evening, they found the flying carpet finished. Cinnabar closely inspected their work, tracing his claws over every inch of the fabric. The carpet was relatively large—at least ten feet by twelve feet—and while it was grungy and so worn that its pattern was long faded, bright blue strands now sparkled throughout its surface.

  “Sloppy knot work here,” the djinni declared. “I told you that the automa would make a mess of it.”

  Pinocchio opened his mouth to argue, but Lazuli cut him off. “I believe I worked on that portion,” she said calmly. “Despite my palace tutors’ best efforts, I’m afraid my sewing skills are hopeless. Will it fly?”

  Cinnabar gritted his fangs and refused to look at Pinocchio, much less apologize. “Of course, Your Highness. You’ll be able to leave us tonight.”

  “Won’t you come?” Lazuli said. “I’ve noticed you wear no fealty collar.”

  “None of the djinn or gnomes of Venice have to wear collars,” Cinnabar said. “We’re imprisoned on an island, after all, Your Highness. No djinni would be mad enough to risk getting wet!”

  Pinocchio wasn’t sure why this was, but he supposed it might have something to do with Cinnabar being a fire elemental. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t sorry to leave the djinni behind.

  “But this is your chance for freedom, old friend,” Mezmer said. “This is your chance to help rescue His Immortal Lordship and save Abaton.”

  Cinnabar shifted uncomfortably.

  “Scared of a little water?” Sop teased.

  “It might just be a little water to you!” Cinnabar snarled. “But if I fell off that carpet, it would be like you falling in a sea of fire. Princess Lazuli, I beg that you understand.”

  She nodded, and Cinnabar gave a sigh of relief.

  “Besides, the more we have aboard, the slower we’ll travel,” Lazuli said. “But the real problem is that carpets like these only go as fast as the breeze. How fast do you think the doge’s fleet is traveling, Zingaro?”

  “Faster than that, I’m afraid.” He stroked the seaweedlike tendrils coming off his chin. “A flying carpet alone won’t be swift enough to catch up with the doge’s fleet. But…yes, there might be a way.” Zingaro gestured to Cinnabar. “What about one of the projectiles your master designed? The new propulsion device for the Fortezza’s missiles?”

  “What is this device?” Lazuli asked.

  “It looks like a simple stone pot with a narrow mouth,” Zingaro explained. “But if a highly combustible substance, such as powdered salamander, is burned inside, it forces a jet of hot air out the mouth. Creates a sort of rocket.”

  “Call me crazy,” Sop said, “but I’m not sure anything combustible is the best thing to have around a carpet. Especially a carpet that’s holding us up.”

  “It would need to be secured to the back,” Cinnabar said. “That way the carpet would be saf
e from the flames. But that’s not the problem. The amount of powdered salamander you’d need for a voyage this long would be too heavy, Your Highness. It won’t work.”

  Zingaro gave Cinnabar an urgent look. “Unless you were willing to go with them, Cinnabar. If you produced the flame, there would be no need for powdered salamander.”

  Cinnabar began shaking his head violently. “No! I thought…but we agreed…I know djinn who have died from falling in water!”

  “You won’t fall,” Sop said. He extended his feline claws to snag Cinnabar’s shirt. “I’ll hold on to you. I promise.”

  “It’s no good discussing this,” Cinnabar said firmly. “We don’t even have this projectile. It’s locked away in my master’s workshop. So you see? It’s impossible.”

  Pinocchio opened his mouth, but Cinnabar jabbed a claw at him. “Don’t even start on how nothing’s impossible, puppet.”

  “We could break into your master’s workshop,” Sop suggested.

  Cinnabar spluttered, “You mean…steal it? Do you know what would happen to me if I were caught?”

  Mezmer waved a hand around at the others. “We’re all taking risks, Cinnabar. We need your help if we’re to rescue His Immortal Lordship.”

  Pinocchio didn’t want the djinni to come. Cinnabar would never see him as more than just a “puppet” to be tormented. But if it meant the difference between reaching his father in time or not, he could put up with the obnoxious djinni.

  “Don’t be afraid—” he began.

  “Don’t you call me a coward, you charading contraption!” Cinnabar’s yellow eyes blazed. “How dare you taunt me? What would your kind know about courage? I would give up my very life to save His Immortal Lordship and to protect Princess Lazuli!”

  Lazuli raised an eyebrow. “Then you’ll come?”

  Cinnabar’s mouth opened and closed before he managed, “Of course, Your Highness.”

  Cinnabar tried to use the excuse that there was no way to reach his master’s workshop at night, but Mezmer had the solution: her chameleon cloak. There was still the obstacle of the gates on all the Catchfools bridges being locked, but Sop had the answer here. Being a thief had its advantages. He volunteered to go along, picking the necessary locks and keeping an extra eye out for trouble.