Castle in the Air

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “Because, if you will forgive further criticism of your great wisdom, O nurturer of our nation, this seems somewhat unfair to your daughter,” Abdullah observed. He felt the eyes of the soldiers turn to him, wondering at his daring. Abdullah did not care. He felt he had little to lose.

  “Women do not count,” said the Sultan. “Therefore, it is impossible to be unfair to them.”

  “I disagree,” said Abdullah, at which the soldiers stared even harder.

  The Sultan glowered down at him. His powerful hands wrung the nightcap as if it were Abdullah’s neck. “Be silent, you diseased toad!” he said. “Or you will make me forget myself and order your instant execution!”

  Abdullah relaxed a little. “O absolute sword among the citizens, I implore you to kill me now,” he said. “I have transgressed and I have sinned and I have trespassed in your night garden—”

  “Be quiet,” said the Sultan. “You know perfectly well I can’t kill you until I have found my daughter and made sure she marries you.”

  Abdullah relaxed further. “Your slave does not follow your reasoning, O jewel of judgment,” he protested. “I demand to die now.”

  The Sultan practically snarled at him. “If I have learned one thing,” he said, “from this sorry business, it is that even I, Sultan of Zanzib though I am, cannot cheat Fate. That prophecy will get itself fulfilled somehow, I know that. Therefore, if I wish my daughter to marry the Prince of Ochinstan, I must first go along with the prophecy.”

  Abdullah relaxed almost completely. He had naturally seen this straightaway, but he had been anxious to make sure that the Sultan had worked it out, too. And he had. Clearly Flower-in-the-Night inherited her logical mind from her father.

  “So where is my daughter?” asked the Sultan.

  “I have told you, O sun shining upon Zanzib,” said Abdullah. “The djinn—”

  “I do not for a moment believe in the djinn,” said the Sultan. “It is far too convenient. You must have hidden the girl somewhere. Take him away,” he said to the soldiers, “and shut him in the safest dungeon we have. Leave the chains on him. He must have used some form of enchantment to get into the garden, and he can probably use it to escape unless we are careful.” Abdullah was unable to avoid flinching at this. The Sultan noticed. He smiled nastily. “Then,” he said, “I want a house-to-house search made for my daughter. She is to be brought to the dungeon for the wedding as soon as she is found.” His eyes turned musingly back to Abdullah. “Until then,” he said, “I shall entertain myself by inventing new ways to kill you. At the moment I favor impaling you upon a forty-foot stake and then loosing vultures to eat bits off you. But I could change my mind if I think of something worse.”

  As the soldiers dragged him away, Abdullah nearly despaired again. He thought of the prophecy made at his own birth. A forty-foot stake would raise him above all others in the land very nicely.

  Chapter 6

  Which shows how Abdullah went from the frying pan into the fire.

  They put Abdullah in a deep and smelly dungeon where the only light came through a tiny grating high up in the ceiling—and that light was not daylight. It probably came from a distant window at the end of a passage on the floor above, where the grating was part of the floor.

  Knowing that this was what he had to look forward to, Abdullah tried, as the soldiers dragged him away, to fill his eyes and mind with images of light. In the pause while the soldiers were unlocking the outside door to the dungeons, he looked up and around. They were in a dark little courtyard with blank walls of stone standing like cliffs all about it. But if he tipped his head tight back, Abdullah could just see a slender spire in the mid-distance, outlined against the rising gold of morning. It amazed him to see that it was only an hour after dawn. Above the spire the sky was deep blue with just one cloud standing peacefully in it. Morning was still flushing the cloud red and gold, giving it the look of a high-piled castle with golden windows. Golden light caught the wings of a white bird circling the spire. Abdullah was sure this was the last beauty he would ever see in his life. He stared backward at it as the soldiers lugged him inside.

  He tried to treasure this image when he was locked in the cold gray dungeon, but it was impossible. The dungeon was another world.

  For a long time he was too miserable even to notice how cramped he was in his chains. When he did notice, he shifted and clanked about on the cold floor, but it did not help very much.

  “I have to look forward to a lifetime of this,” he told himself. “Unless someone rescues Flower-in-the-Night, of course.” That did not seem likely, since the Sultan refused to believe in the djinn.

  After this he tried to stave off despair with his daydream. But somehow, thinking of himself as a prince who had been kidnapped helped not at all. He knew it was untrue, and he kept thinking guiltily that Flower-in-the-Night had believed him when he told her. She must have decided to marry him because she thought he was a prince—being a princess herself, as he now knew. He simply could not imagine himself ever daring to tell her the truth. For a while it seemed to him that he deserved the worst fate the Sultan could invent for him.

  Then he began thinking of Flower-in-the-Night herself. Wherever she was, she was certainly at least as scared and miserable as he was himself. Abdullah yearned to comfort her. He wanted to rescue her so much that he spent some time wrenching uselessly at his chains.

  “For certainly nobody else is likely to try,” he muttered. “I must get out of here!”

  Then, although he was sure it was another notion as silly as his daydream, he tried to summon the magic carpet. He visualized it lying on the floor of his booth, and he called to it, out loud, over and over again. He said all the magic-sounding words he could think of, hoping one of them would be the command word.

  Nothing happened. And how silly to think that it would! Abdullah thought. Even if the carpet could hear him from the dungeon, supposing he got the command word right at last, how could even a magic carpet wriggle its way in here through that tiny grating? And suppose it did wriggle in, how would that help Abdullah to get out?

  Abdullah gave up and leaned against the wall, half dozing, half despairing. It must now be the heat of the day, when most folk in Zanzib took at least a short rest. Abdullah himself, when he was not visiting one of the public parks, usually sat on a pile of his less good carpets in the shade in front of his stall, drinking fruit juice, or wine if he could afford it, and chatting lazily with Jamal. No longer. And this is just my first day! he thought morbidly. I’m keeping track of the hours now. How long before I lose track even of days?

  He shut his eyes. One good thing. A house-to-house search for the Sultan’s daughter would cause at least some annoyance to Fatima, Hakim, and Assif simply because they were known to be the only family Abdullah had. He hoped soldiers turned the purple emporium upside down. He hoped they slit the walls and unrolled all the carpets. He hoped they arrested—

  Something landed on the floor beyond Abdullah’s feet.

  So they throw me some food, Abdullah thought, and I would rather starve. He opened his eyes lazily. They shot wide of their own accord.

  There, on the dungeon floor, lay the magic carpet. Upon it, peacefully sleeping, lay Jamal’s bad-tempered dog.

  Abdullah stared at both of them. He could imagine how, in the heat of midday, the dog might lie down in the shade of Abdullah’s booth. He could see that it would lie on the carpet because it was comfortable. But how a dog—a dog!—could chance to say the command word was beyond him to understand entirely. As he stared, the dog began dreaming. Its paws worked. Its snout wrinkled, and it snuffled, as if it had caught the most delicious possible scent, and it uttered a faint whimper, as if whatever it smelled in the dream were escaping from it.

  “Is it possible, my friend,” Abdullah said to it, “that you were dreaming of me and of the time I gave you most of my breakfast?”

  The dog, in its sleep, heard him. It uttered a loud snore and woke up. Doglike, it wa
sted no time wondering how it came to be in this strange dungeon. It sniffed and smelled Abdullah. It sprang up with a delighted squeak, planted its paws among the chains on Abdullah’s chest, and enthusiastically licked his face.

  Abdullah laughed and rolled his head to keep his nose out of the dog’s squiddy breath. He was quite as delighted as the dog was. “So you were dreaming of me!” he said. “My friend, I shall arrange for you to have a bowl of squid daily. You have saved my life and possibly Flower-in-the-Night’s, too!”

  As soon as the dog’s rapture had abated a little, Abdullah began rolling and working himself along the floor in his chains, until he was lying, propped on one elbow, on top of the carpet. He gave a great sigh. Now he was safe. “Come along,” he said to the dog. “Get on the carpet, too.”

  But the dog had found the scent of what was certainly a rat in the corner of the dungeon. It was pursuing the smell with excited snorts. At each snort Abdullah felt the carpet quiver beneath him. It gave him the answer he needed.

  “Come along,” he said to the dog. “If I leave you here, they will find you when they come to feed me or question me, and they will assume I have turned myself into a dog. Then my fate will be yours. You have brought me the carpet and revealed me its secret, and I cannot see you stuck on a forty-foot stake.”

  The dog had its nose rammed into the corner. It was not attending. Abdullah heard, unmistakable even through the thick walls of the dungeon, the tramp of feet and the rattle of keys. Someone was coming. He gave up persuading the dog. He lay flat on the carpet.

  “Here, boy!” he said. “Come and lick my face!”

  The dog understood that. It left the corner, jumped on Abdullah’s chest, and proceeded to obey him.

  “Carpet,” Abdullah whispered from under the busy tongue. “To the Bazaar, but do not land. Hover beside Jamal’s stall.”

  The carpet rose and rushed sideways—which was just as well. Keys were unlocking the dungeon door. Abdullah was not any too sure how the carpet left the dungeon because the dog was still licking his face and he was forced to keep his eyes shut. He felt a dank shadow pass across him—perhaps that was when they melted through the wall—and then bright sunlight. The dog lifted its head into the sunlight, puzzled. Abdullah squinted sideways across his chains and saw a high wall rear in front of them and then fall below as the carpet rose smoothly over it. Then came a succession of towers and roofs, quite familiar to Abdullah though he had only seen them by night before. And after that the carpet went planing down toward the outer edge of the Bazaar. For the palace of the Sultan was indeed only five minutes’ walk from Abdullah’s booth.

  Jamal’s stall came into view, and beside it, Abdullah’s own wrecked booth, with carpets flung all over the walkway. Obviously soldiers had searched there for Flower-in-the-Night. Jamal was dozing, with his head on his arms, between a big simmering pot of squid and a charcoal grill with skewered meat smoking on it. He raised his head, and his one eye stared as the carpet came to hang in the air in front of him.

  “Down, boy!” Abdullah said. “Jamal, call your dog.”

  Jamal was clearly very scared. It is no fun keeping the stall next door to anyone a sultan wishes to impale on a stake. He seemed speechless. Since the dog was taking no notice, either, Abdullah struggled into sitting position, clanking, rattling, and sweating. This tipped the dog off. It jumped nimbly to the stall counter, where Jamal absently seized it in his arms.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, eyeing the chains. “Shall I fetch a blacksmith?”

  Abdullah was touched at this proof of Jamal’s friendship. But sitting up had given him a view down the walkway between the stalls. He could see the soles of running feet down there and flying garments. It seemed that one boothkeeper was on his way to fetch the Watch, though there was something about the running figure that reminded Abdullah rather strongly of Assif. “No,” he said. “There’s no time.” Clanking, he wriggled his left leg over the edge of the carpet. “Do this for me instead. Put your hand on the embroidery above my left boot.”

  Jamal obediently stretched out a brawny arm and, very gingerly, touched the embroidery. “Is it a spell?” he asked nervously.

  “No,” said Abdullah. “It’s a hidden purse. Put your hand in and take the money out of it.”

  Jamal was puzzled, but his fingers groped, found the way into the purse, and came out as a fistful of gold. “There’s a fortune here,” he said. “Will this buy your freedom?”

  “No,” said Abdullah. “Yours. They’ll be after you and your dog for helping me. Take the gold and the dog and get out. Leave Zanzib. Go north to the barbarous places, where you can hide.”

  “North!” said Jamal. “But whatever can I do in the north?”

  “Buy everything you need and set up a Rashpuhti restaurant,” said Abdullah. “There’s enough gold to do it, and you’re an excellent cook. You could make your fortune there.”

  “Really?” said Jamal, staring from Abdullah to his handful of money. “You really think I could?”

  Abdullah had been keeping a wary eye on the walkway. Now he saw the space fill, not with the Watch but with northern mercenaries, and they were running. “Only if you go now,” he said.

  Jamal caught the clank-clank of running soldiers. He leaned out to look and make sure. Then he whistled to his dog and was gone, so swiftly and quietly that Abdullah could only admire. Jamal had even spared time to move the meat off the grill so that it would not burn. All the soldiers were going to find here was a caldron of half-boiled squid.

  Abdullah whispered to the carpet. “To the desert. Fast!”

  The carpet was off at once, with its usual sideways rush. Abdullah thought he certainly would have been thrown off it but for the weight of his chains, which caused the carpet to bulge downward in the center, rather like a hammock. And speed was necessary. The soldiers shouted behind him. There were some loud bangs. For a few instants two bullets and a crossbow bolt carved the blue sky beside the carpet and then fell behind. The carpet hurtled on, across roofs, over walls, beside towers, and then skimming palm trees and market gardens. Finally it shot forth into hot gray emptiness, shimmering white and yellow under a huge bowl of sky, where Abdullah’s chains began to grow uncomfortably warm.

  The rushing of air stopped. Abdullah raised his head and saw Zanzib as a surprisingly small clump of towers on the horizon. The carpet sailed slowly past a person riding a camel, who turned his well-veiled face to watch. It began to sink toward the sand. At this the person on the camel turned his camel, too, and urged it into a trot after the carpet. Abdullah could almost see him thinking gleefully that here was his chance to get his hands on a genuine, working magic carpet, and its owner in chains and in no position to resist him.

  “Up, up!” he almost shrieked at the carpet. “Fly north!”

  The carpet lumbered up into the air again. Annoyance and reluctance breathed from every thread of it. It turned in a heavy half circle and sailed gently northward at walking pace. The person on the camel cut across the middle of the half circle and came on at a gallop. Since the carpet was only about nine feet in the air, it was a sitting target for someone on a galloping camel.

  Abdullah saw it was time for some quick talking. “Beware!” he shouted at the camel rider. “Zanzib has cast me out in chains for fear I spread this plague I have!” The rider was not quite fooled. He reined in his camel and followed at a more cautious pace, while he wrestled a tent pole out of his baggage. Clearly he intended to tip Abdullah off the carpet with it. Abdullah turned his attention hastily to the carpet. “O most excellent of carpets,” he said, “O brightest-colored and most delicately woven, whose lovely textile is so cunningly enhanced with magic, I fear I have not treated you hitherto with proper respect. I have snapped commands and even shouted at you, where I now see that your gentle nature requires only the mildest of requests. Forgive, oh, forgive!”

  The carpet appreciated this. It stretched tighter in the air and put on a bit of speed.

/>   “And dog that I am,” continued Abdullah, “I have caused you to labor in the heat of the desert, weighted most dreadfully with my chains. O best and most elegant of carpets, I think now only of you and how best I might rid you of this great weight. If you were to fly at a gentle speed—say, only a little faster than a camel might gallop— to the nearest spot in the desert northward where I can find someone to remove these chains, would this be agreeable to your amiable and aristocratic nature?”

  He seemed to have struck the right note. A sort of smug pridefulness exuded from the carpet now. It rose a foot or so, changed direction slightly, and moved forward at a purposeful seventy miles an hour. Abdullah clung to its edge and peered backward at the frustrated camel rider, who was soon dwindling to a dot in the desert behind.

  “O most noble of artifacts, you are a sultan among carpets, and I am your miserable slave!” he said shamelessly.

  The carpet liked this so much that it went even faster.

  Ten minutes later it surged over a sand dune and came to an abrupt stop just below the summit on the other side. Slanting. Abdullah was rolled helplessly off in a cloud of sand. And he went on rolling, clattering, jingling, bounding, raising more sand, and then—after desperate efforts—tobogganing feetfirst in a groove of sand, down to the very edge of a small muddy pool in an oasis. A number of ragged people who were crouching over something at the edge of this pool sprang up and scattered as Abdullah plowed in among them. Abdullah’s feet caught the thing they were crouching over and shot it back into the pool. One man shouted indignantly and went splashing into the water to rescue it. The rest drew sabers and knives—and in one case a long pistol—and surrounded Abdullah threateningly.