The Wooden Prince (20 page)

“I'm not sure,” Wiq said. “I have to say a name, or anyone—the doge, or even one of these chimera—could declare themselves your master. Who should I say?”

“He wants to be your master, automa,” Sop said. “Your chum wants to make you his servant so he can escape.”

“That's not true!” Wiq said. “I'm helping him.”

The one-eyed cat gave a sinister purr. “Sure you are, puppet master.”

“Say that Geppetto is my master,” Pinocchio said.

Wiq turned the key, and Pinocchio felt that momentary weightlessness, that feeling of freedom. Then Wiq said, “Geppetto is your master now.”

Pinocchio wondered what would have happened if he'd gotten Wiq to say
Pinocchio is your master now
. But it was too late. The heaviness sank over him. It wasn't like when Al Mi'raj had become his master. That had been crushing. This felt like a comforting weight, like a heavy blanket. He was glad he belonged to Geppetto again. If only he could find him.

“Whatever happened to Abatonian loyalty?” Mezmer asked coolly. “Free us.”

“Yeah,” Sop chimed in. “He's just an automa. We're chimera like you. And do you even have a plan to get out of the city? There are airmen everywhere. You'll need us.”

“Do you have a plan?” Pinocchio asked.

Wiq shook his head.

“Sop's right, lad,” Mezmer said. “If you let us out, we can help you escape. We've snuck out of worse spots.”

Wiq looked worried. “I…I don't know…”

“We can trust them,” Pinocchio urged. “I just know it.”

“You can,” Mezmer said. “I swear to you as a knight of the Celestial Brigade.”

“A what?” Wiq asked.

Sop snorted. “She fancies herself one of the legendary Abatonian order.”

“I am a descendant of the founder of the Celestial Brigade, the glorious chimera hero Mezmercurian!” Mezmer said.

“So you've told me a million times or two.” Sop gave a sigh. “But it is true that if Mezmer gives her word, it won't be broken.”

Wiq approached Mezmer with a frown and spoke quietly. “If I let all these chimera out, the airmen will spot you for sure. There are too many of you.”

“Trust me, darling,” Mezmer said with a wink. “We'll want them all freed.”

Wiq looked hesitant but began unlocking the cell doors. The chimera rushed out, growling ferociously. Although their savage displays were disconcerting, Pinocchio realized they were just showing their excitement in their own monstrously peculiar ways.

Mezmer gathered her brethren at the door. She held a hand to silence them and said, “Which way, lad?”

“Airmen are guarding most of the entranceways,” Wiq said. “But there's a door to the back alley. A hidden door. Where Al Mi'raj has his stolen automa snuck in. Al Mi'raj wasn't giving up that secret. There's no guard posted there.”

“Splendid,” Mezmer said.

Wiq led them up the stairs from the dungeon and through the hallways until they reached the door to the alleyway where Pinocchio had first come in. They rolled aside the barrel at the top of the stairs, and one by one the chimera slipped into the dark. Pinocchio followed Mezmer and Sop. As he did, the door shut behind them.

Pinocchio spun around and saw Wiq peering at him through a small panel in the door. “What are you doing? Aren't you coming?”

Wiq shook his head slowly. “I can't, Pinocchio. You know I can't.” He touched a finger to the collar.

“But…but we promised to get away together!” This wasn't their plan. What was Wiq doing? Pinocchio shoved his arm through the hole to grab Wiq, but Wiq stepped out of reach.

“I'm not leaving you!” Pinocchio said. “My guts feel like they're boiling. It's my instincts…they're telling me this is wrong, Wiq. Don't do this!”

“I have to,” Wiq said, his voice strangely raspy. “And you have to. Can't you see, you goof?”

Pinocchio felt something sharp and awful piercing in his chest. “But…but…” Pinocchio said. “Please! You're my friend.”

Wiq brushed angrily at his face. “I know. And you're my friend too. That's why I have to break our promise. I wanted to go, but I can't. You've got to understand. This is the only way for you to get away.”

“Come on, dear,” Mezmer said pulling on Pinocchio's arm. “Don't make it harder.”

Pinocchio shoved her away. He reached through the panel and clasped Wiq's hands.

“Please, Wiq,” he cried.

“I'm sorry,” Wiq whispered. Then he called to the fox. “You have to keep Pinocchio safe. You can't let the doge's soldiers capture him. He's…he's too important. Do you understand?”

Mezmer nodded.

Wiq squeezed Pinocchio's hand. Tears beaded on the fur on his cheeks. “Good-bye, Pinocchio,” he said. “If you find your father…if he rescues Prester John…maybe His Immortal Lordship can find a way to save us.”

He shut the panel and was gone.

“Wiq, don't!” Pinocchio cried.

It took Mezmer and Sop both pulling Pinocchio to get him up the stairs and into the alley. “Hush, lad! We have to go.”

Pinocchio felt his eyes burn as if hot steam wanted to erupt from them. He slumped to the ground while Mezmer spoke quietly with a small group of the remaining chimera. She clasped each of them by the forearms and said, “You'd have made magnificent knights, darlings,” before the group turned and disappeared down the alley.

Mezmer pulled Pinocchio to his feet. He staggered in a daze as she and Sop led him away. It was only a moment later he realized that they weren't following the group.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

“Wiq was right,” she said grimly. “If we all stayed together, we'd be caught. They are providing a necessary distraction, so we can hopefully get away.”

“But what will happen to them? Will they be captured again?”

“Some. Most will fall in glorious battle against the imperial guards.”

“I don't understand,” Pinocchio said.

Mezmer stopped and placed a paw to his shoulder. “It is like with your friend Wiq. When friends are loyal and true, they are willing to help one another no matter the cost. Come. Let us not have their sacrifice be in vain.”

Pinocchio felt the smallest bit of understanding penetrate the fog of grief encompassing him. Mezmer was right. He couldn't let Wiq down. So he followed her and Sop as they made their way through the darkened streets of Siena.

As they rounded a corner, the muffled sound of musket fire echoed off the buildings, illuminating the night in brief bursts. Distant voices shouted. Then the sky filled with airmen streaking toward the commotion.

Mezmer pulled Pinocchio and Sop into an alley to take cover.

“They found our brethren,” she said, looking up worriedly at all the airmen. “Now we have to hope they won't find us.”

Pinocchio's thoughts had been consumed by leaving Wiq, but now the sight of the airmen and the sound of the gunfire finally woke him to their present danger.

“So how are we going to escape?” he asked, sticking close to Mezmer's side as the three slid from alleyway to alleyway.

“When we get to the wall,” Mezmer explained, “Sop will first make sure there are no guards. He sees better with his one eye than most do with two. Then you'll start to scale the wall, strong automa that you are. We'll hold on to your legs, and Sop will give a special tap if he spies trouble—”

“What should the tap be?” Sop interrupted. “Maybe…” He made a
bop-ba-bop, bop-ba-bop
rhythm with his paws. “Or what about a birdcall? It could be…” The noise sounded more like a distressed toad than any bird Pinocchio had ever heard.

“Wait!” Pinocchio sputtered. “Are you saying we're just going to climb over the wall and hope we don't get spotted by airmen?”

“That's the general plan,” Mezmer replied, her attention focused on the skies and the streets ahead.

“That's a terrible plan!” Pinocchio said.

“Well, it's the only one we have at the moment,” Sop said, pushing Mezmer and Pinocchio into a doorway as a trio of airmen streaked overhead.

Pinocchio wondered if going with Mezmer and Sop was a huge mistake.

“I'd give my good eye for a sword right about now,” Sop mumbled. “Or better still, a chameleon cloak.”

“A what?” Pinocchio asked, Sop's words reminding him of something.

Mezmer pulled him after her. “Doesn't much matter, does it, darling? As we don't have—”

“Do chameleon cloaks disguise you as your surroundings?” he asked. “I know where we might get some.”

“What?” Mezmer stopped running and fixed Pinocchio with a surprised look.

“The men who brought me to Siena wore them,” Pinocchio said. “But I don't know if they're still here.”

“Do you know where they stay in town?” Mezmer asked.

“Not really,” Pinocchio said.

Sop hissed. “Then we're wasting time! Let's just go.”

In the street ahead, Pinocchio spied a banner with an eagle emblazoned on it. He'd seen banners like that when Rampino brought him to Al Mi'raj's. Each of the neighborhoods of Siena seemed to display a different banner. And Rampino had been staying in the neighborhood where the banners were…

“Snails,” he murmured. “We have to find the snails.”

“The snails?” Sop looked at Pinocchio like he was completely insane.

Pinocchio hurried down the alley. “Just follow me.”

Mezmer shoved Sop forward. “Let's see what the lad is onto.”

Pinocchio led them down several streets until they reached a neighborhood with rhinoceros banners. “This isn't right.”

Sop groaned, but Pinocchio set off in the other direction, and soon they spied panther banners. Yes, he remembered those. Weaving down the narrowest streets and sticking to the shadows so as not to be spotted from above, Pinocchio eventually reached a square with the snail banners.

“Snails,” Sop said, giving a nod of understanding. “So where are they?”

“Hopefully in those stables over there,” Pinocchio said.

The square was a large one, and crossing it would make them more exposed than they had been in the narrow streets.

“I can handle this,” Sop said, adjusting his eye patch. “Wait here.”

Sop crossed the square, moving from one shadowy spot to another with surprising stealth, especially for a cat as pudgy as he was. He disappeared into the stables.

Pinocchio held his breath. If Sop woke Rampino's men and a fight broke out, the airmen would notice for certain. But a moment later, Sop slipped back across the square, his arms bundled around not only three chameleon cloaks, but also a pair of swords and a spear.

“Excellent, darling!” Mezmer said, giving the spear an experimental twirl.

Pinocchio threw on the cloak and tested the feel of the sword. Not bad.

“Sleeping off too many bottles of wine, that group was,” Sop chuckled, buckling the sword belt and pulling the cloak around his shoulders. He blended in perfectly with the shadowy stone wall behind him. “How do I look? Invisible?”

“Not exactly,” Mezmer said. “I can see you when you move. But we'll be invisible enough from the sky.” Then she added, “Hopefully. Off we go.”

“Wait!” Pinocchio said. “We have to find Geppetto. My fa—I mean, my master is somewhere in the city. He's in danger.”

“If you haven't noticed, we're in danger too,” Sop said.

“Listen, dear,” Mezmer said to Pinocchio, leaning on her spear. “I swore to your friend I'd help you get away, and that's what I'll do. If your master was looking for you, he'll have discovered by now that there's been an escape from Al Mi'raj's theater. The best thing for us to do is leave this city and hope your master comes after you.”

“But how will he find me?”

“Not our concern at the moment, dear,” Mezmer said kindly before pulling up her hood and setting off.

Musket fire had woken most of Siena. Faces peered out of illuminated windows, but none seemed to notice the three as they made their way to the north gate.

A night guard stood before the closed portcullis. He narrowed his eyes as they approached. “Who goes there?” he called.

Pinocchio really hoped this was going to work. “Rampino,” he said in the most gravelly voice he could muster.

“Awful early for you,” the guard chuckled. “Where are the rest?”

“Sleeping,” Pinocchio said. “These idiots…uh, dropped a bag of coins at our last camp. We'll be back later.”

The guard cocked his head toward the sounds of the airmen. “Seems suspicious you leaving with these imperial airmen in town.”

Pinocchio stiffened and slid a hand to his sword.

The guard burst out laughing. “I don't even want to know what kind of pickle you've gotten into with the imperials, naughty Rampino. Just keep finding us more like the Magpie. I'll keep quiet that you came through. Hurry before you get in trouble.”

He opened the gate, and the three headed out onto the steep lane that zigzagged down from Siena. When they reached the main road, Pinocchio looked back at the city. Was Geppetto still there? Would he find a way to escape? If his father had tracked him down in Siena, he had to hope he'd be able to find him still. But now, dawn was coming, and the gunfire was getting worse. They had to get away.

He turned and found Mezmer smiling down at him.

“Nice work back there, darling,” she said. “My, aren't you full of surprises. I never imagined puppets could be so clever.”

“I'm not a puppet,” Pinocchio said.

Mezmer rubbed her furry chin. “No, I suppose you're not. But what are you, exactly?”

Before Pinocchio could answer, Sop said, “Quit yapping and move,” as he jogged down the road.

“That must be the djinni's theater,” Geppetto said.