The Wooden Prince (2 page)

But he was an automa, and automa had to do as they were told.

“Yes, there is a better use for you,” Don Antonio said, reaching a gnarled hand toward Pinocchio's chest. “Your fantom. What I would give for that! Let's just open you up and take a look—”

But before the old man could touch his chest panel, Pinocchio's hand shot out and grabbed Don Antonio's wrist. He hadn't meant to do this, and it surprised him completely.

“ARGH!” Don Antonio cried out. “You're crushing my bones! Let go of me, you fiend!”

Pinocchio couldn't let go, no matter how much he wanted to. Something about Don Antonio reaching for his chest panel had caused him to grab the old man. Watching with horror as Don Antonio struggled to pull free, Pinocchio realized how strong his gearworks made him—so much stronger than a human, especially an old one.

“I'm sorry,
signore
. I don't know why I'm doing this. I can't help it! Really I can't.”

His nose began to grow. Little by little it inched out from his face. Pinocchio knew what this meant. Automa weren't supposed to hurt any person, unless their masters ordered it. And the mark of an automa who caused harm or wasn't following orders properly was an elongated nose. Oh, why couldn't he let go? Why couldn't he be an obedient automa?

Don Antonio wailed in agony and dropped to his knees. “Otto, help me!”

The mechanical butler was there in an instant, struggling to pry Pinocchio's grip from his master's wrist. But it was no use. Pinocchio couldn't get free.

“The…ax!” Don Antonio managed.

Otto picked up the ax and reared back with it. Pinocchio furiously tried to get his fingers to let go of Don Antonio, but they wouldn't obey.

Otto swung. The ax bit deep into Pinocchio's arm. Naturally it didn't hurt, but as the iron blade lodged into his wood, Pinocchio felt his gearworks go slack and his vision dim. Direct contact with iron—or with lead or any other base metal—disrupted an automa's functions. Pinocchio knew that well enough.

The blow from the ax finally allowed him to release Don Antonio. Pinocchio fell with a clatter on the stone floor. His vision came back into focus. He stared dimly up at the ceiling, past his horrid long nose. All sorts of feelings flooded through him, feelings that he had no name for, feelings that made the wooden surface of his face seem to burn and made his gears feel mangled.

“Are you injured, my master?” Otto asked in his monotone voice.

Don Antonio whimpered. “My arm…I think I can move it. Nothing seems broken.”

“Very good,” Otto said. “What should I do with the automa?”

“Lock that thing back in the trunk,” Don Antonio snarled.

Pinocchio wanted more than anything not to go back in that dark, cramped box. But he couldn't disobey. His nose was long enough already.

Movement was beginning to return to his gears, but Pinocchio allowed Otto to place him inside the trunk. As Otto began to hammer the nails back into the lid, Pinocchio heard Don Antonio say, “After you're finished, send for Signore Polendina.”

“The shopkeeper?” Otto asked.

“Yes, the
shopkeeper
,” Don Antonio said with what almost sounded to Pinocchio like a chuckle. Why would he laugh? That was puzzling. “I've been wondering about our village's new shopkeeper,” Don Antonio went on. “If we are properly persuasive, Otto, I suspect Signore Polendina might have much to reveal about the traitor Geppetto's whereabouts.”

T
rapped once again in the trunk, Pinocchio wished he could return to his old life. Back when he was a servant in the floating palace, he hadn't had any of the confusing feelings that were churning through his insides now. What he would have given to be back simply following orders and serving the palace guests like a good automa. Not hurting anyone.

Soon muffled voices returned to the cellar. Pinocchio tried to hear what they were saying, but only snatches of words came through the trunk's lid: “…Captain Toro found it…outside the village gates…flown back to Venice for orders…returning with airmen…”

At last the lid came off. At the sight of Otto and his ax, Pinocchio flinched down as flat as he could in the trunk.

“He looks frightened,” a man said.

Pinocchio peered up from the trunk. The man, who must have been the shopkeeper Signore Polendina, was about half the age of Don Antonio. He had a pointed mustache and streaks of silver in his black hair. He wasn't nearly as well dressed as Don Antonio, but Pinocchio liked his face right away. He didn't narrow his eyes or do those funny things with his eyebrows.

“Frightened?” Don Antonio chuckled in his wheezy voice. “Don't be ridiculous, man. An automa can't be frightened.”

Pinocchio wondered if in fact that
was
how he was feeling. Frightened.

“Yes, of course.” Polendina stroked his mustache. “The automa's nose has extended. What's he done?”

Don Antonio gave a wet cough before saying, “That's why I've brought you here, Signore Polendina. Have you heard what these automa have inside their chests?”

Polendina hesitated half a moment. “I know a little. A fantom, so I've been told? The springwork that the imperial alchemists use to animate these automa.”

“Exactly. But did you know that their fantoms can be used as elixirs? They can be turned into potions that extend life.” Don Antonio grinned. “What can I say? I was curious. I tried to open the automa's chest to get its fantom.”

He gave Pinocchio an accusing frown and held up his bandaged arm. “But when I did, this fiend nearly broke my wrist! Even Otto was not strong enough to break its grip. He had to strike it with an ax to get it to let go of me.”

Polendina's eyes searched until he spotted the tear in Pinocchio's sleeve. Pinocchio brought his hand up to the spot, feeling the notch in his wooden arm. For an instant their eyes met, and Polendina gave Pinocchio a tilt of his head.

“I couldn't help it,
signore
!” Pinocchio said all at once. “It wasn't my fault.”

“Be silent,” Otto said, shaking the ax at him.

As Pinocchio shrank back, Signore Polendina's gaze remained fixed on him.

“I assume you want me to keep quiet to Captain Toro that you've been curious about his captive?” Polendina said.

Don Antonio's voice lowered. “I want more than that of you, Signore Polendina.”

“What do you mean?”

“I believe you know who this automa belongs to.”

Signore Polendina frowned. “Who?”

“The automa says its master is Geppetto.”

Signore Polendina blinked so placidly he might have been an automa. “I don't know any Geppetto.”

“I think you do,” Don Antonio said with a strange smile. “When I learned that the automa was supposed to be delivered to the traitor and former high alchemist Geppetto Gazza, the pieces fell into place. You see, not many know this, but Geppetto Gazza's wife and son recently lived here. In a fortified villa not far outside our walls. In fact, sadly, Geppetto's family was murdered here, supposedly by a band of half-beast outlaws.”

Pinocchio watched, transfixed, struggling to make sense of what Don Antonio was saying. He found that his hands were fidgeting with something in his pocket. A key. Pinocchio vaguely remembered the prisoner giving it to him, but there was no time to wonder about that now.

“No one would have guessed that the fugitive Geppetto would return to his wife's hometown,” Don Antonio continued. “Such a man would be better off taking refuge in the false pope's court in France or fleeing into the deepest wilds of the Kongo. Coming here would be the act of a man with nothing left to live for, nothing left to lose. A man simply waiting for his inevitable capture. Still, he came, although none of us were the wiser.”

Don Antonio poured himself a glass of wine before continuing. “When you arrived in our village a few months back and set up your shop, Polendina's Abatonian Imports and Refurbishments, I assumed, as any would, that you were simply a dealer in Abatonian magical goods. A nice business. A welcome addition to our little out-of-the-way town. But we don't get many new citizens here. Our town is not the sort of place strangers come to start businesses. Let me speak plainly. You aren't who you claim to be, are you, Signore Polendina?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Polendina said.

Don Antonio pointed to Polendina's hands. “You always wear gloves indoors,
signore
. Why don't you take them off and show me your fingers?”

Signore Polendina crossed his arms, tucking his gloved hands away.

“Are you afraid to show me your burned fingertips? Afraid to show that you have the marks of an alchemist,
Master Geppetto
?” Don Antonio said.

Pinocchio tried to make sense of this. Was Signore Polendina actually Geppetto? Was that why Don Antonio had brought the man here? A warm feeling surged through Pinocchio's gears at the thought that this might be his new master.

Geppetto or Polendina or whoever he was gave a swift look back at Otto, his face momentarily showing that he was…what was the word?
Frightened
? The automa butler stared blankly back at him, the ax held firmly across his chest.

“Don't worry, dear man. I mean you no harm,” Don Antonio said. “Yes, you are in danger, but not from me, I can assure you. Captain Toro will return soon with a whole squadron of imperial airmen, if not Flying Lions. They will want to capture this Geppetto as a traitor to the empire. But it will take days for them to return all the way out here. We have time. We still have time.”

“Time for what?”

Don Antonio waved to Pinocchio. “For me to give you what is rightfully yours.”

“You have me mistaken for someone else, Don Antonio,” Signore Polendina said, walking quickly past Otto and toward the stairs. “I bid you good night.”

Don Antonio let him pass before saying, “And what shall I do with the automa? Give it over to Captain Toro? Let them take it back to Venice, where they'll disassemble it to find out why it was sent to the traitor Geppetto?”

“No!” Pinocchio cried, leaping from the trunk.

This was his master! He was sure of it. He couldn't let Master Geppetto go. But Otto reared up with the ax, waiting for Don Antonio's orders. Pinocchio shrank back. “Please don't let them do that to me, Master!”

The shopkeeper froze. He looked back over his shoulder at Pinocchio, his face pinched. “You fear being disassembled?”

“Yes, Master,” Pinocchio pleaded. “Don't leave me here.”

The man slowly walked back toward Don Antonio. “Am I to believe that you would simply defy an officer of the empire and allow me to escape with this automa?”

Don Antonio smiled. “You are right,
signore
. It is a crime, is it not? But suppose the trunk was smashed open, and suppose I told Captain Toro that the prisoner escaped?”

“That might be believed.” The shopkeeper crossed his arms over his chest. “But you would be taking an enormous risk.”

“Yes, I would.” Don Antonio tapped his whiskery chin thoughtfully. “But suppose you made it a risk I was willing to take?”

“What do you want from me?”

“I am an old man,” Don Antonio wheezed. “I am nearing the end of my life. I'm not eager for it to be over. Who is? A few more years would be most welcome. A few more years to enjoy my glasses of Chianti and plates of pasta and roasted boar.”

“You want an elixir.”

Don Antonio gave him a playful poke in the chest. “My father, rest his soul, dabbled in alchemy. He told me all about how elixirs are made, although he was never able to make one himself. If you, sir, are the fabled alchemist Geppetto Gazza, then you would be able to make an elixir that could extend my life a few more years. Dare I hope even decades?”

“Possibly,” he answered. “But to make an elixir, I'll need the fantom of an automa. Where would I get the fantom?”

Don Antonio held a hand toward Pinocchio.

The shopkeeper shook his head. “If I remove his fantom, he'll no longer function. I'd never know why the automa was sent. What good would it be to take the lad if he no longer functioned?”

Pinocchio didn't like how that sounded.

Don Antonio sighed. “I feared that might be the case. But you are quite right. Fortunately, we have another option.”

His eyes darted to Otto.

“I can always purchase a new butler,” Don Antonio said. “But the opportunity to make an exchange with an alchemist of your talents, Master Geppetto, does not come along often. You may use Otto's fantom.”

Slipping off his gloves and exposing his blackened fingertips, Geppetto stepped toward Otto. The mechanical butler watched him impassively.

“Put down your ax, Otto,” Don Antonio ordered.

Otto laid the ax against the wall and faced Geppetto again. Geppetto pushed Otto's cravat out of the way and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a compartment in the middle of his chest. Geppetto turned the latch and opened the panel. In the hollow square gleamed a golden orb of gears and springs.