The Wooden Prince (18 page)

With a grimace, Pinocchio bounded on his seven-league boots, knocking Harlequin down. Al Mi'raj wouldn't like that! He dreaded facing the furious djinni, but what else could he do?

Before Harlequin could shove Pinocchio away, the chimera attacked. The badger's war hammer pinned one arm. The crocodile clamped his jagged teeth onto Harlequin's other arm.

“Now!” Mezmer barked. She spun her spear like a twirling scythe, and Pinocchio scrambled to get out of the way as she swiped the broad-bladed tip.

Pinocchio felt something brush past his feet. As he sat up, he saw Harlequin's head rolling away. Harlequin's eyes blinked wildly, malfunctioning. “Harlequin is not supposed to lose,” he complained.

The plan had worked!

Mezmer stood over Pinocchio, smiling down at him. “Thanks, darling.”

Pinocchio nodded, excitedly. The chimera had a chance now. They might actually beat the automa! Although the reality nagged at him: What good would it do? This wasn't going to win them their free—

Columbine rushed up behind Mezmer.

“Watch out!” Pinocchio shouted.

Mezmer spun, but before she could block, Columbine's sword drove into the fox's chest. Pinocchio gasped as the tip of the blade came out the back of Mezmer's shirt.

Mezmer choked and fell.

T
he audience screamed with delight as the battle raged on, but Pinocchio was frozen. He stared at Mezmer.

Sop appeared, hissing and spitting. He flipped Mezmer over and recoiled at what he saw. “No, Mez!” he cried. “NO!”

Mezmer gasped, clutching her blood-soaked chest. “There's…no saving me, dear,” she sputtered. “Keep…fighting.”

Sop beat his fist against the cobblestones. Then he screamed a wildcat howl before charging Columbine.

Pinocchio didn't watch their fight. His eyes were fixed on Mezmer. An awful feeling stirred his insides. The brave chimera was dying.

Pressure and horror and steam seemed to fill Pinocchio's head. But through all that, he was remembering something. From the river. He had seen someone die before….

Captain Toro.

The airman had drowned. And yet, somehow, he'd come back to life. Pinocchio had brought him back to life.

Pinocchio pressed his hands against the fox's wound. “Stay calm,” he said. “I can help you.”

“Stupid puppet,” she whispered. “I…can't…be…h…” Her words dissolved into a hiss. She stared up, but no longer saw him. Mezmer's life had spilled out of her too fast.

The clank of steel and the roars of the chimera echoed along with the crowd's exhilaration.

Pinocchio felt something burning in his gearworks. It ran from his chest down into his arms, like a valve being released of its pressure. In the gap between his shirt cuff and his gloves, Pinocchio saw the flesh of his arms transforming. This time it was reversing. Grains of wood rose on the surface. His fingers grew stronger again, turning back into wood.

He yanked off the gloves. His pink fingernails were gone.

Mezmer's eyes shot open, and she gasped an enormous breath, sitting up abruptly. She looked around in alarm and then stared, wide-eyed, at Pinocchio.

“What…?” Mezmer murmured. She looked down at the front of her jerkin. The white patch of fur that poked out was matted crimson with her heart's blood. But as Mezmer felt along the sticky fur, she couldn't find the wound.

As Pinocchio watched this, a strange sensation came over him. Just as it had after saving Captain Toro, Pinocchio's head seemed to fill with a thick mist. The desperation and fear and wonder that were brimming moments before began to vanish. He had only a moment to consider how odd this was. What had he just done? His nose twitched, telling Pinocchio he had done something bad. No, it had not been bad, he reminded himself. He had been trying to help….

The fealty lock in the back of his neck suddenly sparked with energy. He was to obey, not question. Pinocchio rose with a jerk, his thoughts evaporating.

Silence blanketed the crowd. Mezmer climbed to her feet, peering around with disbelief. One by one, the chimera and automa lowered their weapons and stared at Mezmer…and then at Pinocchio.

Sop came forward. “How can this be?”

Suddenly a pair of airmen landed. Mezmer reached for her spear.

“Don't move!” one ordered.

Other airmen landed, training their muskets on the rest of the chimera. “Back!” they shouted. “Drop your weapons and get back to the pen!”

Al Mi'raj was storming across the piazza, looking anxiously up at the doge.

An airman shackled Mezmer and called to the djinni, “We're taking them inside. Find a place to hold them.”

Al Mi'raj stood gaping at the fox and then over at Pinocchio. “What have you done?”

Before Pinocchio could answer his master, an airman grabbed him by the back of his neck and pushed him forward. “I've been hunting for this one.”

The airman from the river. Captain Toro.

Pinocchio glanced back at the chimera. The metal poles of the pen were lowering around them. The crowd was murmuring, and airmen were ordering the piazza cleared. Pinocchio was not concerned with how his thoughts were dimming. There was such panic and fear in everyone around him. But not in Pinocchio. He had nothing to fear. This was what it had been like before…before Prester John.

With a last glance, Pinocchio spied the doge staring down at him. The lord mayor was talking rapidly. The doge, however, was ignoring the mayor. His eyes were locked on Pinocchio.

Pinocchio felt no concern. Why should he? That part of his thoughts had vanished. He was back to being a good, obedient automa.

Once inside, Captain Toro hauled Pinocchio into the workshop. The airman remained at the doorway, guarding the entrance.

“Over here,” Bulbin said to Pinocchio, leading him as far from the door as possible and pointing to a chair. “Sit down.”

Al Mi'raj looked back over his shoulder at Captain Toro before whispering to Pinocchio. “Did you do that to the fox?”

“Do what, Master?”

Al Mi'raj was breathless with disbelief. “I saw her run through with a sword. A chimera can't survive that. No one can.” He stared at Pinocchio. “Did you?”

Pinocchio sat rigid in the chair, unable to sort out the question. “Did I what, Master?”

“I'm asking you if you…” Al Mi'raj looked over at Bulbin, who was frowning, before taking a deep breath and whispering, “Did you bring the chimera back to life?”

Pinocchio didn't know. He couldn't remember what he had done.

Bulbin didn't wait for his reply. “We all seen it! All Siena seen it!”

“But how?” Al Mi'raj said. “How? I wasn't born in Abaton, but I know about the magic of our homeland. You do too, old friend. Have you ever heard of raising the dead? I haven't. How could an automa possess this power?”

“Resurrections en't impossible,” Bulbin said.

“No, but that is the work of Prester John! Only he gives that gift.” Al Mi'raj looked back at the airman standing in the doorway. Then he leaned close to Pinocchio to whisper, “I'm ordering you to tell me. Explain how you brought that chimera back to life!”

“I do not know, Master.”

Bulbin crossed his arms. “There's been something higgledy about this one. I thunk it was just his model. These Vitruvian Manikins can be a wee queer. But now I seen, there's something more to this one. Someone tinkered with him, eh? I don't know what's been done, but I'll just open him up and see what's going on.”

Bulbin split into two identical, if slightly smaller, versions of himself. The other Bulbin ran over to get his tools.

The gnome's words awakened something deep in Pinocchio's mind. Fighting against the fogginess, Pinocchio glanced down at his hands. They'd been different before. Weak and squishy. But now they were strong again. And Bulbin was so small….

“No,” Pinocchio managed. “Do not do that. If you touch my panel, I have a charm that commands me to defend myself. You serve Master Al Mi'raj, and I know I should not hurt you. But I would not be able to stop myself.”

Al Mi'raj and the Bulbins exchanged looks. The second gnome dropped the tools.

“Have you ever heard of a charm like that?” Al Mi'raj asked.

“No,” Bulbin said. “But it could be done. I could imagine how. But who'd bother putting such a thing on an automa?”

“Who put this charm on you?” Al Mi'raj asked Pinocchio quietly. “Answer me.”

Faint memories bubbled from the thick recesses of his thoughts.

“It was a prisoner,” Pinocchio replied. “Someone named Prester John.”

The Bulbins sprang together into a single astonished gnome.

“His Immortal Lordship?” Al Mi'raj gasped. “Imprisoned?”

Voices carried from down the hallway as a group was approaching the workshop.

“But what's Prester John done to this automa?” Bulbin hissed.

“Whatever it is, we can't let the doge discover it.” Al Mi'raj rose to greet his masters.

At the doorway, Captain Toro stepped aside, bowing his head as the crimson imperial guards entered. “The lord doge of Venice,” one announced through his helmet.

Al Mi'raj and Bulbin bowed. Pinocchio just sat there, waiting for orders.

The doge marched in, draped in heavy red-velvet cloaks trimmed in thick fur. His face seemed to have far too much flesh, a saggy face with bulging eyes and wads of loose skin flapping from his jowls.

The lord mayor said, “My doge, this is the djinni Al Mi'raj, who runs our theater company.”

Al Mi'raj bowed lower. “Your presence is an honor, my doge.”

The doge pursed his droopy lips distastefully at Al Mi'raj. “What have you discovered about what that automa did out there?”

“Nothing, my doge. We cannot figure out how he did it.”

The doge glared at Pinocchio. “Where did you get this automa?”

“We've had him sitting around for ages, my doge,” Al Mi'raj said. “Only recently has Bulbin had time to get him operational. Clearly something is still not working right.”

The doge turned to the lord mayor. “Do you trust this monster?”

“Y-yes, my doge,” the lord mayor said, nodding vigorously. “Al Mi'raj runs a reputable business and theater. I can assure you. He and his gnome have fealty papers and have been nothing but loyal servants to me and their empire.”

“Liar!” a voice cracked.

Everyone froze, their attention turning to the airman standing in the doorway.

“What are you saying, Captain?” the Mayor said, affronted.

Captain Toro's face was a bright shade of purple, his dark eyes locked on Al Mi'raj. The captain's voice shook as he spoke. “That fire eater is lying!”

“
Signore
, I am an ever-loyal servant to Venice,” Al Mi'raj said, smiling through his fangs.

“You are a liar and a traitor,” Captain Toro spat. “That automa does not belong to you. I know this automa. It is the one that was sent to Geppetto Gazza.”

The doge's bulging eyes grew wider. “Ever-loyal servant, Al Mi'raj, tell me again where this automa came from.”

Al Mi'raj exchanged a glance with Bulbin before saying, “I don't remember. We must have bought him years ago from a trader—”

“He's lying!” Captain Toro shouted. The imperial guards pushed him back with their spears.

Al Mi'raj stammered, “M-my doge, we purchase disassembled automa all the time, and fix them up for our theater. I swear to you that this automa—”

The doge snatched Bulbin by the throat, lifting the tiny gnome off the floor.

The hand that gripped Bulbin was no ordinary hand. The doge had lost his hand when Geppetto cut it off. In its place was a hand cast of pure lead.

The metal went to work at once on Bulbin. The brown gnome began to turn a dusty gray, like moist earth growing parched. The gnome gasped, his black eyes rolling back.

“Swear to me, do you?” the doge asked, spittle frothing on his lips. “Do you
swear
upon this disgusting little clod of filth that you've had this automa for years?”

“No!” Al Mi'raj cried. “I remembered wrong. I was confused! Please let him go.”

Bulbin went limp in the doge's grip and began to split apart. Little versions of the gnome peeled off like flakes of ash, crumbling to the floor.

“When did you get the automa?” the doge asked calmly.

“Not a week ago, my doge! I don't know where the trader got the automa from.”

Pinocchio wondered if he should defend his master and Bulbin, but until Al Mi'raj ordered him to do so, he would wait.

“Could the automa have belonged to the traitor Geppetto?” the doge asked.

“I know nothing about this Geppetto,” Al Mi'raj said. “I swear…I mean I promise you, my doge, I had no idea it belonged to any Geppetto!”

The doge glared at him. Then he released Bulbin. The gnome thudded to the floor. He gasped a deep breath as warm brown color returned to his face. Bulbin got on all fours, panting and wide-eyed with fear as he gathered the crumbled other gnomes and pushed them back into his body.