The Wooden Prince

by John Claude Bemis

Cinnabar looked too shocked to speak.

  Lazuli clutched her father’s hand. “What about Abaton, my lord?”

  “Do not call me that, my child,” he said. “I am your father. Although, I fear, I have not been a very good father. I realize that now. Once I gave up the powers of the Ancientmost Pearl, an unforeseen clarity found me. I realized…” He wheezed for breath. “Too long have I clung to the throne of Abaton, Lazuli. Too long have I tried to shape the world with its wonders. And for what? Look what sickness has been unleashed on the world of men by Abaton’s magic. It is time for another to rule.”

  “But who?” Lazuli asked.

  He patted her hand warmly. “You, child. My youngest child. My last child. You shall rule. Take the Ancientmost Pearl. Go home and be my successor.”

  Lazuli was shaking her head. She pulled back from him, her whole body trembling. “No. I don’t want to rule.”

  “If not you, then who?” he said. “Be strong, my daughter. You have always been the best of my children. That you do not want to rule is what makes you the most fitting heir.”

  “Prester John, please!” Cinnabar said. “You are our Immortal Lordship. Princess Lazuli does not want to rule. She is young. Too young. We need you! Come back with us. Take the Pearl and lead us to Abaton.”

  When Prester John didn’t reply, Cinnabar rounded on Pinocchio, pointing at him venomously. “You agreed you would return the Pearl to His Immortal Lordship. Give it to him!”

  Pinocchio looked helplessly around at them. “I don’t know how. I thought he would know—”

  “You said you would save him!” Cinnabar shouted. “If His Immortal Lordship won’t take it, then give it to Princess Lazuli. She needs it. We need it. All of Abaton needs it! It is the only way for us to get out of this beast and go home.”

  “But I’m not an automa any longer,” Pinocchio said. “The panel is gone. There’s no way to get the Pearl out.”

  “There is,” Cinnabar spat. He spun around and snatched Sop’s sword from his belt. “I will cut it out of you if I must!”

  Geppetto stepped in front of Pinocchio while Mezmer flashed out with her spear, knocking the blade from Cinnabar’s hands.

  “You would play the traitor when our lord Prester John is dying before our feet?” Cinnabar snarled at Mezmer.

  “This is not the way, Cinnabar,” Mezmer said.

  “Then how else?” The djinni looked crazed and desperate as he stared around at the others for support.

  Pinocchio realized Cinnabar was right. But what was he to do?

  “Father,” Lazuli said, “Pinocchio should not die so that we have the Pearl. It’s not worth this. Please, is there a way to take it out and let Pinocchio live?”

  Prester John breathed noisily, as if each breath was excruciating. His glazed eyes flickered from Pinocchio to Geppetto. “I am sorry. I do not have this power. I cannot give life. Only the Ancientmost Pearl gives life.”

  Cinnabar showed his gleaming fangs. “Then it is settled. You are holding the blade, Mezmer.”

  Mezmer’s fox ears flattened against her head. She looked at the spear in her hands and at Pinocchio. “No!” She let the spear clatter to the floor. “You know I cannot. Not Pinocchio.”

  Pinocchio gave Mezmer a grateful nod. “I am sorry. If I was only an automa again, I could give it to you. But it is trapped inside me.”

  “True,” Cinnabar said, his voice going calm and quiet. The djinni slipped a hand beneath his cloak. “There is still a way.”

  Before anyone realized what was happening, Cinnabar pulled out the handheld crossbow and aimed it at Geppetto. In that instant, only Lazuli reacted. She leaped at Geppetto as the bowstring twanged. She knocked Geppetto to the ground.

  Sop and Mezmer tackled Cinnabar. “It was the only way!” Cinnabar shrieked. “The only way to get back the Pearl!”

  “Father!” Pinocchio screamed.

  Geppetto lay across Lazuli. As Pinocchio rolled him over, he saw to his relief that his father was not hurt. But Lazuli lay on her back. Blood soaked her tunic. The crossbow bolt was lodged by her heart.

  Geppetto gasped. “No, child!”

  Lazuli gulped hopelessly for breath. Pinocchio could hardly fathom what he was seeing, the shock and horror of it all was so intense. It was as if the world had gone suddenly silent except for the thundering of blood in his ears. Mezmer’s mouth was open with anguish. Sop was spitting and hissing in fury at Cinnabar, while the djinni pleaded. But Pinocchio could hear none of this.

  He fell to his knees beside her. “Lazuli…you can’t…”

  The blue light was fading from her eyes. He could plainly see that any moment the wound would prove fatal….

  But for now, there was still time. If he hurried.

  Pinocchio wiped the back of his hand across his eyes to clear his vision. He grabbed the crossbow bolt with both hands, and without hesitating, without letting the fear of what lay ahead give him any pause, he tugged. The barbed tip caught, and Lazuli lurched forward in pain.

  He was hurting her, but what else could he do? He had to get the bolt out if he was going to save her life.

  “I’m sorry, Lazuli,” Pinocchio said. Once more he pulled. The bolt came loose. The tip had broken off, but it was out.

  Lazuli’s eyes rolled. She groaned and arched her back in pain. Blood spilled faster. Pinocchio pressed both his hands over the wound.

  “Hold on, Lazuli,” he begged. “Just a moment more.”

  “What are you doing?” Geppetto said, pulling at his shoulder.

  Pinocchio could not explain. There was no time. He pressed his hands over the wound and closed his eyes. When Pinocchio had saved Mezmer, he had still been partially an automa. The sensation then had been as if his gearworks were melting, as if steam were coming from the valves in the cavity of his wooden body. But now, as flesh and blood, the sensation was something worse. It was as if every nerve in his body were being singed.

  Pinocchio grew dizzy with the pain, but he held his hands tightly to Lazuli’s chest. He couldn’t stop. Her life depended on him.

  The burning feeling disappeared, replaced by something dull and cold. Looking down at his forearms and hands, Pinocchio watched as his fingernails vanished. The tiny hairs on his arms disappeared. The wrinkles upon his knuckles and the slight lines etching his skin deepened into grooves of wood grain once more.

  Blood stopped spilling from Lazuli’s chest.

  Pinocchio felt his thoughts thickening. In a moment, this Pinocchio—the living, feeling, thinking Pinocchio—would be gone. The mindless automa Pinocchio would return. Although he couldn’t see it, he knew the keyhole had opened up on the back of his neck. The panel in his chest was accessible once more.

  Lazuli would live—would be able to take the Pearl. Abaton would be safe. His father, all his friends, they would be saved.

  This life, he accepted in those fading moments, had always been a temporary gift. Nothing more than an accident. A wonderful accident…Pinocchio smiled as Lazuli’s eyes began to regain focus, light returning to them.

  Geppetto pulled Pinocchio into his arms. He held him like a child. Tears spilled down his whiskered cheeks.

  Pinocchio whispered, “I’m glad I had the chance to see what it was like to be alive, Father. I only wish…” His thoughts were fading fast, cooling like molten lead into something dense and impenetrable.

  “I…I…just wish…”

  But there was no use wishing. He knew this was what had to happen. If only he could have seen Abaton too. It sounded like such a wonderful—

  Whatever he had been thinking vanished like the last wisp of smoke from an extinguished candle. The automa Pinocchio clattered up stiffly from his master’s arms, gears clicking into place.

  He waited for the wide-eyed man, his master, to tell him what to do.

  M aestro sprang to Lazuli. “Are you all right, Your Highness?”

  Lazuli touched her chest. Her fingers came back red, but the wound was closed. Something du
ll ached deep in her chest. Something painful lay lodged next to her heart. But for now, she was alive. Pinocchio had saved her. And the deep-down pain was nothing compared to the pain of realizing what Pinocchio’s sacrifice now meant.

  The blank-faced automa rose to his feet, oblivious to the stares of everyone around him.

  “Master Geppetto,” she said, reaching for him. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

  Sop still held Cinnabar, his hooked claws snagged in the djinni’s cloak. Cinnabar wriggled free, and Sop didn’t try to stop him. Like the others, the cat was stunned, staring at Pinocchio with misery and disbelief.

  “Now do you see?” Cinnabar said, climbing to his feet. “You all seemed to have forgotten, but see, it was nothing more than an automa.”

  Lazuli gave Cinnabar a vicious look. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “How could you do this?”

  “I did not mean to shoot you, Your Highness.” Cinnabar knelt before her, his head cupped in his hands. “Please forgive me. I meant to shoot the alchemist. I wasn’t trying to kill him. I knew the automa would save him. But you live. And now we are all saved. Please, Princess Lazuli, take the Ancientmost Pearl.”

  When she did not move, Cinnabar rose and approached Prester John. “It was for Abaton, Your Majesty. Tell your daughter. Tell her to take the Pearl.”

  Prester John didn’t seem to hear Cinnabar. He watched Pinocchio and the others. For the first time, the immortal king of Abaton looked perplexed.

  “Why do you weep for this wooden boy?” he asked.

  Lazuli wasn’t sure how to explain this to her father—how Pinocchio had seen Gragl for what she truly was when the others hadn’t, how he’d saved Mezmer’s and even Captain Toro’s lives, how he’d followed only his heart, wanting nothing more than the impossible dream of being a son to Geppetto.

  “Can you not see, Father?” Lazuli said. “He was loved.”

  Cinnabar said, “It was just an automa, Your Majesty. How can they have loved a contraption? It is time to go to Abaton. Princess Lazuli, if you won’t, then I will take the Pearl. I will give it to you, my lord.”

  But as he reached to pull open the front of Pinocchio’s shirt, the automa grabbed Cinnabar’s arms in a crushing grip.

  The djinni howled. “Release me! You’re breaking my arms.”

  “I cannot help it,” Pinocchio said flatly.

  Mezmer grabbed Pinocchio but couldn’t pry his grasp from Cinnabar. Finally, Geppetto dug out the fealty key and, scowling, gave it a turn in the lock. Pinocchio let go and Cinnabar fell, gnashing his teeth in pain.

  “You fool,” Mezmer snapped at Cinnabar. “Don’t you realize there’s no way to get it from him? There’s a protective charm. He can’t let you take it.”

  “Then how are we to get it?” Cinnabar said.

  “Allow me,” a low voice said, filling the room like an icy wind.

  Through the dark openings in the whale skull, red-armored Venetian soldiers charged in, muskets leveled. The doge entered slowly, a triumphant smile on his face. At his side stood Captain Toro.

  “Clear them,” he ordered his guards.

  Mezmer and Sop sprang up, but too late. The soldiers knocked the weapons from their grasp and pinned them to the floor. Lazuli and Cinnabar charged forward as well. But it was hopeless. The doge had too many soldiers. They disarmed the two and forced them to the ground beside Sop and Mezmer. Swift blows from the stocks of their muskets stilled any resistance.

  Pinocchio stood in front of Geppetto, the model of a good automa guarding his master.

  The doge approached. “Naughty Geppetto Gazza, again you betrayed me for Prester John. After your capture, I showed you mercy. I took you back in to help me claim Abaton’s throne. But you have shown you are not to be trusted. I will not make that mistake again. When I take the Ancientmost Pearl, when I use it to command the Deep One to free us, you will not be coming with me.”

  Geppetto scowled. “It is not for Prester John that I betrayed you.”

  The doge cast a scornful glance at the automa protecting Geppetto. “Oh, for that? Your wooden servant? It will not be able to protect you or the Ancientmost Pearl from me. And I have you to thank for that, my disreputable high alchemist.”

  The doge pulled off his glove, exposing his leaden hand.

  He reached out for Pinocchio’s chest. Pinocchio clutched the doge’s hand to stop him, but the lead took effect immediately, and Pinocchio clattered limply to the floor like a dropped marionette.

  “No!” Lazuli cried, struggling beneath the bootheel of the guard who had her pinned.

  “You see?” the doge said, kneeling beside Pinocchio. “It is time for Venice to possess the jewel of immortality. It is time to expand our empire. No more monster kingdoms. With this, I will at last lay claim to Abaton for humans.”

  He ripped Pinocchio’s shirtfront. With a snap of the latch, the doge opened the panel and stared in confusion. He put a hand to the pinecone. “What is this?”

  The guard who was standing over Lazuli flew forward, almost as if he had been hit by a cannonball. His armor clanked as he hit the opposite wall and toppled to the floor, unconscious.

  The doge spun, his bulging eyes wild with confusion. Gragl lifted her barnacle-encrusted head from where she had rammed the soldier. She stared fiercely at the doge. “You will not harm Pinocchio.”

  The doge sputtered in disbelief. “You nasty little crustacean!” He signaled to his guards. “Shoot her.”

  Several of the guards fired their muskets. Shells cracked and turned to powder as the shots thudded against Gragl. She fell back. But as the smoke from the musket blasts began to disperse, Gragl groaned and staggered to her feet.

  “You will not harm me either,” she said.

  From behind her, more of the barnacle people emerged, their meekness now replaced by something dangerous, something angry, something menacing. Although the interior of the domed skull was large, the flood of barnacle people quickly filled the room as they charged at the guards. More shots boomed. Musket balls cracked against their ancient, crusted armor.

  “Glorious battle!” Mezmer cried, grabbing her spear—and Sop—to join the horde of barnacle people clashing with the doge’s soldiers. Lazuli crouched beside Geppetto, protecting him and her father.

  An airman fell through the line of barnacle people and landed at Lazuli’s feet. When he looked up dizzily, Lazuli saw that it was Captain Toro.

  “Captain!” the doge cried from behind the wall of guards protecting him from the crushing onslaught of barnacle people. “Look! It is the Ancientmost Pearl! Take it. Take it before it’s too late!”

  Lazuli saw Captain Toro look over at Pinocchio, lying motionless on the ground. Pinocchio’s chest panel lay open and empty. Lazuli was terrified that the Ancientmost Pearl had been lost, knocked loose and kicked away in the frenzy of battle, but no, there it was, lying on the floor.

  It was no longer a pinecone. Her father’s glamour, the spell that had transformed it to keep it hidden, along with the protective charms, had worn off. The Ancientmost Pearl, free of Pinocchio, showed itself in its true form. It indeed looked like a pearl, although more massive than any pearl Lazuli had ever seen. It swirled with a dazzling storm of color and pulsing light.

  “Hurry, Toro!” the doge shouted. His forces were outnumbered. Gragl and her people were driving back the doge’s men. At any moment, they would reach the doge himself.

  “Now, Toro! Take it!”

  Captain Toro locked eyes with Lazuli.

  Lazuli felt weak from her wound, but she was not too weak to defend the Ancientmost Pearl from Captain Toro.

  But Captain Toro wasn’t looking at her anymore, or at the Pearl. He was staring at Pinocchio. For the briefest instant, a look, the strangest look, passed over the captain’s face. She might almost have thought it was sadness.

  Then Captain Toro leaped to his feet. Lazuli struggled to stand, struggled to raise her sword. But Toro didn’t go for the Pearl. He spun around and gave a roar.
His wings opened, and he flew across the heads of the barnacle people.

  He grabbed the doge and pulled him off the ground. Captain Toro’s wings flattened shut as he rocketed out one of the skull’s massive eye sockets and snapped open once they were outside.

  “No!” the doge screamed.

  The remaining airmen, realizing that they were overwhelmed and their doge was safe, hurried after, escaping the barnacle people’s grasps and vanishing one by one into the darkness.

  The battle had all happened so fast. Once the guards were gone, the others looked at one another, breathless and astonished. Gragl inched her way past them to reach Pinocchio.

  “What’s happened to him?” she whispered.

  Lazuli knelt beside her, putting a hand on Pinocchio’s motionless one. The automa’s eyes were open. But Pinocchio stared blank and sightless.

  If the Ancientmost Pearl had remained in Pinocchio’s chest, he might have eventually changed back into a human. But now that it was out, now that it had been taken from him, he was just an automa, an automa with an empty hole in his chest, an automa that would never again come to life.

  Maestro crept onto Pinocchio’s shoulder, his antennae drooping. “He’s gone. And I never got to play ‘Orpheus’ for him again. It was his favorite song.”

  Geppetto knelt to brush a hand across Pinocchio’s cheeks, closing his eyes. He gave Lazuli a sad, gentle smile and said, “It’s all right, child. There was nothing you could do.”

  Lazuli brushed angrily at her eyes. There must have been more she could have done. And so much more Pinocchio would have done had he lived.

  “My daughter,” her father spoke behind her. “You…have done well. You will make a wonderful ruler.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to face him. Wasn’t this what she had always wanted? For her father to see her as more than just another princess to greet guests at the Moonlit Court? So why did this not feel right?

  “Lazuli,” Prester John wheezed. “The powers of the Ancientmost Pearl make you the new prester…make you Abaton’s protector. Take it. Lead your people home.”

  Lazuli opened her eyes, but she didn’t look up. Her gaze fell on the jasmine vine twisted around Pinocchio’s wrist. Pinocchio’s promise to his friend Wiq.