The Wooden Prince (14 page)

They were cheering for him. He was the one the audience was watching.

And he had discovered his role to play. Harlequin was the acrobatic clown hero. Scaramouch was the prowling villain. Columbine was dainty but lethal.

And Pinocchio was the soaring magpie.

He might have been smaller than the others, but he was swift. With his seven-league boots, he could leap. He could bound. He was practically flying! All the time, he fought with a ferocity he hadn't known he had.

The audience loved this. “Magpie! Magpie!” they cried.

Pinocchio smiled as he fought his way through one cluster of Harlequin's swordsmen after another. He soon discovered that, aside from the jaguar-masked Scaramouch, he was the only one of their troupe still left fighting. He had no time to marvel at his good fortune. The entire horde of Harlequin's swashbucklers surrounded him.

He sprang high in the air, his magpie cloak flapping out like wings, and landed on top of a hovering pixie bulb, this time managing not to break it. The automa below helplessly swung their swords, too far out of reach.

“Come now,” one of the automa called up to him. “You cannot hide up there. Jump down and get killed like the others.”

Pinocchio decided to ignore this suggestion. He pretended to be caught up watching Scaramouch and Harlequin, who were in the thick of combat. Poor Columbine lay sprawled on the ground, fortunately with all her limbs still intact.

Pinocchio discovered that Al Mi'raj, over in the courtyard, was glaring furiously at him. Pinocchio knew he was in big trouble. Al Mi'raj pointed directly at him, then pointed to the ground where the armed mass of swashbucklers waited. Al Mi'raj drew his finger across his neck. Pinocchio had no doubt what the djinni was saying.

He tried to pretend he hadn't seen Al Mi'raj's order. But too late. His nose began to grow.

A collective gasp rose from the crowd, and Pinocchio saw that Scaramouch had knocked Harlequin onto his back. Scaramouch pressed one foot to Harlequin's chest and roared a surprisingly realistic jaguar howl. He reared up with his poleax, preparing to make the final blow.

“Ha, Harlequin,” Scaramouch said in his flat automa voice, “what do you have to say to that?”

Harlequin cocked his head. “I say:
look behind you
.”

Scaramouch turned. Columbine came to life, springing like a wildcat and landing on Scaramouch, cleaving a pair of hand axes into his chest.

“Oh, I am dead,” Scaramouch said, and collapsed to the ground.

Columbine embraced Harlequin, and he swept her up in his arms, kissing her and sending another jet of steam from the top of his head.

The applause was thin this time. Most of the audience was grumbling.

“Well now,” Punch said, looking pointedly at Pinocchio. “'Twould appear that all the half-beasts are not yet dispatched.”

It wasn't just Punch looking at him. The entire city of Siena was staring. So was the mob of automa, even the fallen ones. Worst of all, Al Mi'raj was giving Pinocchio a look like he wanted to set Pinocchio's head on fire and eat it.

His nose grew a few inches longer, mashing into the end of the beak of his mask. His automa impulses told him to obey Al Mi'raj. But if he did, he was doomed!

“Get down,” Columbine scolded.

Pinocchio looked below. There were far too many to fight off, especially with Harlequin among them. He'd be splinters in an instant, he knew it.

“Prithee, young magpie,” Punch said. “Thy chase is up. All battles must come to an end.”

“Halt!” All eyes went to the top of the Palazzo Pubblico. The lord mayor was standing. He spoke hurriedly to one of his attendants. The man nodded and disappeared down the stairs.

Pinocchio gulped. This was bad. The lord mayor, frustrated with Pinocchio's lousy performance, was surely sending orders for some dramatic, gruesome punishment.

Al Mi'raj marched into the middle of the square as the lord mayor's man hurried out from the front gates of the Palazzo Pubblico.

The djinni hunched submissively. “Signore Enrico, please give the lord mayor my deepest apologies. The automa is new. It's clearly malfunctioning. I beg the lord mayor's forgiveness. I'll have it destroyed at once.”

Pinocchio winced.

“No! No!” Signore Enrico waved his hands. “Please don't destroy the Magpie. The lord mayor is quite taken with his performance.”

“He is?” Al Mi'raj's voice dripped with disbelief.

“Why, yes!” Signore Enrico laughed. “A magpie. What a perfect choice for his role! The way he flew across the others as he fought. And when he landed atop the pixie bulb like a bird in a nest! Most amusing. I thought Harlequin was masterful, but that one…that Magpie…the way he wields a sword! Well, he's tremendous.”

“Yes, he is, isn't he?” Al Mi'raj looked like he'd just eaten a rancid salamander.

“The lord mayor gives you his compliments and requests that you not allow such a magnificent performer to be mangled by these second-rate automa. It would ruin the day.”

“It would?” Al Mi'raj mumbled.

Pinocchio's eyes grew wide in the mask. This was an excellent turn of events!

“The lord mayor requests that you call off your swashbucklers and allow the Magpie to display his full talents in single combat with Harlequin.”

Pinocchio's smile fell.

“Yes, of course,
signore
.” Al Mi'raj bowed.

Signore Enrico swept his cape around his arms and returned to the Palazzo.

Al Mi'raj growled at Punch, “Clear the stage.” Then he pointed at Pinocchio. “I want you down here at once.”

“Yes, Master,” Pinocchio mumbled. If his nose grew any longer, it would break the mask. He slid from the pixie bulb and landed on the cobblestones.

Al Mi'raj clamped a hand around Pinocchio's beak. “You will fight. No hiding on pixie bulbs. Fight! Do you understand, Magpie?”

Pinocchio tried to nod, but Al Mi'raj's furious grip made it impossible.

“You will please the lord mayor, or you will find that Bulbin can turn you into worse things than a chamber pot.”

As Al Mi'raj left, a chant rose from the crowd—just a few voices at first, but it grew, until there was a thunderous “Magpie! Magpie! Magpie! MAGPIE!”

“Well,” Pinocchio said as Harlequin approached. “I suppose the lord mayor wants to see me beat you.”

Harlequin ran a finger along the blade of his sword, leaving behind a curly wood shaving.

Pinocchio tried again. “Didn't you get that impression from him?”

Harlequin swung the sword so fast it was as if it had burst from a catapult. The tip of the beak disappeared from the front of Pinocchio's mask. Fortunately, he didn't lose any of his nose.

“Oh!” Pinocchio forced a laugh. “Good thinking. Best give them a show first.” He tried to find a sturdy hold on the scimitar, but nothing felt right. His fleshy fingers felt weak and slippery.

Harlequin somersaulted backward. When he landed, he began a dramatic series of twirls with his sword. Pinocchio wanted to run. Preferably all the way out the gates of Siena. The dashing Magpie! That's what they'd call him. Of course, that sort of dashing wasn't the kind of show Al Mi'raj and the lord mayor had in mind.

Harlequin launched at Pinocchio. Pinocchio dodged, but Harlequin's sword clipped his collar, chunking out a splinter of wood.

The blow was enough to ignite the protective impulse around his fantom panel. Pinocchio felt a surge of strength run down his arms. His eyes focused into unbreakable concentration. With quick back-and-forth slices, Pinocchio drove at Harlequin.

“Magpie! Magpie!” the audience chanted.

Harlequin never seemed to be where he struck. He was just too fast, too agile. No, he had to find a different way to beat this perfect performer.
Think! Think!

Harlequin came down on him in a flurry of blows. Pinocchio leaped, but not quickly enough. Harlequin stabbed his sword deep into the wood of Pinocchio's back.

Before Harlequin could pull the sword back out, Pinocchio circled out of reach. Harlequin was weaponless. But quickly he picked up a double-bladed ax that had been left on the ground. Pinocchio gulped. Great Vesuvius, that ax was big!

As Harlequin charged, the crowd cheered. Were they turning against him? He needed to think fast.

Evading Harlequin's heavy blows, Pinocchio realized what he could do that Harlequin couldn't.
Think.
Harlequin wasn't smart at all. He was just an ordinary automa who had been designed to perform amazing flips and feats. Pinocchio, on the other hand, was strategizing. That certainly wasn't something he'd done before Prester John shoved that pinecone in him.

So how could he outsmart Harlequin?

After a series of jabs and parries, an idea struck Pinocchio. If this went wrong—and there were so many ways it could—he'd be chopped into about a dozen pieces. He set his jaw, ready to attempt this final insane plan.

Pinocchio feigned dropping his scimitar. As he bent down to retrieve it, he prepared himself for the inevitable. Sure enough, Harlequin's ax bit deep in the wood of his back next to the lodged sword. Pinocchio gave a quick twist, and Harlequin lost his grip on the ax.

Pinocchio sprang several strides away, the ax still lodged in his back. He had to wait. There were no other weapons around. Let Harlequin come for the ax. That's what he'd do. He wasn't considering trickery. He was just performing as he'd been designed.

“Come on, you show-off,” Pinocchio muttered, bending his knees for a seven-league jump.

Harlequin did a double flip and reached for the handle of the ax.

But the ax wasn't there.

Neither was Pinocchio.

He was ten feet in the air. Down he came with the scimitar, taking off Harlequin's hands. Then he spun around, cleaving the blade into Harlequin's wooden skull. The force of the blow caused the lid to pop open on his head. Steam whistled out.

The audience exploded to their feet, howling, “MAGPIE!”

Pinocchio backed away, not sure what to do if Harlequin continued the attack. But Columbine and Punch were running to him. Harlequin didn't seem to know how to perform a dramatic death. He just stood there, looking up at the scimitar stuck in his forehead.

Punch flourished his hands to the audience and then to the lord mayor. “Our dazzling Magpie hast claimed victory!”

Columbine planted a wooden kiss on Pinocchio's cheek.

The crowd whistled. The lord mayor was standing with his party atop the Palazzo Pubblico, with a smile on his face that Pinocchio couldn't miss.

Pinocchio grinned and took a dramatic bow, the sword and the ax still lodged side by side in his back. An automa could get used to theater life, he thought. This wasn't so bad. Not bad at all.

Later that night, Pinocchio sat with the other automa down in the cellar, trying to repair the holes in his feathered cloak. Bulbin had removed the sword and the ax from his back and filled the notches in his wood.

Pinocchio felt relief wash over him. Relief that he'd survived the battle and that his secret was safe. He was replaying the exciting moments of the day in his head when Wiq came in.

“Come on,” Wiq said. “Be quick. There's something I want to show you.”

Pinocchio put down his needle and cloak and followed him out the door. “What is it?”

“You'll see. Just follow me. But be quiet so Al Mi'raj doesn't hear us.”

Wiq led him up a narrow circular staircase to a rooftop terrace. A misty moon drifted overhead, and Siena was cloaked in quiet. The huge piazza below was empty. The stands had been taken down, and shuttered market stalls stood in their place.

“Over here,” Wiq said from the other side of the terrace. He pointed down to a narrow street. “Can you see what's painted on that wall?”

It was hard to make out in the dimness, but a pixie bulb outside a shop cast enough light for him to see that someone had painted a black-and-white bird on the side of a building.

“What is it?” Pinocchio asked.

“Can't you tell?” Wiq said with a flick of his floppy ears. “It's you. The Magpie. You're famous!”

“I am?”

Wiq relaxed an elbow against the railing. “I heard Al Mi'raj say all Siena is abuzz over the dazzling swordsman who beat Harlequin.”

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.”