Castle In The Air Part 4

49.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 n.o.body 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?

50.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 a.s.sif 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 themost 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 wasted no time wondering how it came to be in this strange dungeon. It sniffed and smelled Abdullah. It sprang 51.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 a.s.sume 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 52.dank shadow pa.s.s 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 sawa 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 flyinggarments. 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 a.s.sif. "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."

53.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 s.p.a.ce 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 54.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 55.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 n.o.ble 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.

"Cut his throat," said one.

Abdullah blinked sand out of his eyes and thought he had seldom seen a more villainous crew of men. They all had scarred faces, shifty eyes, bad teeth, and unpleasant expressions. The man with the pistol was the most unpleasant of the lot. He wore a sort of earring through one side of his large hooked nose and a very bushy 56.mustache. His headcloth was pinned up at one side with a flashy red stone in a gold brooch.

"Where have you sprung from?" this man said. He kicked Abdullah.

"Explain yourself."

All of them, including the man who was wading out of the pool with some kind of bottle, looked at Abdullah with expressions that said his explanation had better be good. Or else.

7.

Which introduces the genie

Abdullah blinked more sand out of his eyes and stared earnestly at the man with the pistol. The man really was theabsolute image of the villainous bandit of his daydream. It must be one of those coincidences.

"I beg your pardon a hundred times, gentlemen of the desert," he said with great politeness, "for intruding on you in this manner, but am I addressing the most n.o.ble and world-famous bandit, the matchless Kabul Aqba?"

The other villainous men around him seemed astonished. Abdullah distinctly heard one say, "How did he know that?" But the man with the pistol simply sneered. It was something his face was particularly well designed to do. "I am indeed he," he said. "Famous, am I?"

It was one of those coincidences, Abdullah thought. Well, at least he knew where he was now. "Alas, wanderers in the wilderness," he said, "I am, like your n.o.ble selves, one who is outcast and oppressed. I have sworn revenge on all Rashpuht. I came here expressly to join with you and add the strength of my mind and my arm to yours."

58."Did you indeed?" said Kabul Aqba. "And how did you get here? By dropping from the sky, chains and all?"

"By magic," Abdullah said modestly. He thought it was the thing most likely to impress these people. "I did indeed drop from the sky, n.o.blest of nomads."

Unfortunately they did not seem impressed. Most of them laughed. Kabul Aqba, with a nod, sent two of them up the sand dune to examine Abdullah's point of arrival. "So you can work magic?" he said. "Do these chains you wear have anything to do with that?"

"Certainly," said Abdullah. "Such a mighty magician am I that the Sultan of Zanzib himself loaded me with chains for very fear of what I could do. Only strike these chains apart and undo these handcuffs and you will see great things." Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two men returning, carrying the carpet between them. He hoped very much that this was a good thing to happen. "Iron, as you know, inhibits a magician in the use of magic," he said earnestly. "Feel free to strike it off me and see a new life open before you."

The rest of the bandits looked at him dubiously. "We haven't got a cold chisel," said one. "Or a mallet."

Kabul Aqba turned to the two men with the carpet. "There was only this,"

they reported. "No sign of anything to ride. No tracks."

At this the chief bandit stroked his mustache. Abdullah found himself wondering if it ever got tangled with his nose ring. "Hmm," he said.

"Then I'll lay odds it's a magic carpet. I'll have it here." He turned sneeringly to Abdullah. "Sorry to disappoint you, magician," he said, "but since you delivered yourself so conveniently in chains, I'm going to leave you that way and take charge of your carpet, just to prevent accidents. If you really want to join us, you can make yourself useful first."

Somewhat to his surprise, Abdullah found he was far more angry than frightened. Perhaps it was that he had exhausted all his fear thatmorning in front of the Sultan. Or perhaps it was just because he ached all over. He was sore and sc.r.a.ped from sliding down 59.the sand dune, and one of his ankle bands was chafing brutally. "But I have told you," he said haughtily, "that I shall be no use to you until my chains are off."

"It is not magic we want from you. It is knowledge," said Kabul Aqba. He beckoned to the man who had gone wading into the pool. "Tell us what manner of thing this is," he said, "and we may let your legs loose as a reward."

The man who had been in the pool squatted down and held out a smoky blue bottle with a rounded belly. Abdullah levered himself to his elbows and looked at it resentfully. It seemed to be new. There was a clean new cork showing through the smoky gla.s.s of the neck, which had been sealed over with a stamped lead seal, again new-looking. It looked like a bottle of perfume that had lost its label. "It's quite light," said the squatting man, shaking the bottle about, "and it neither rattles nor sloshes."

Abdullah.thought of a way he could use this to get himself unchained.

"It's a genie bottle," he said. "Know, denizens of the desert, that it could be very dangerous. Do but take these chains from me, and I will control the genie within and make sure he obeys your every wish.

Otherwise I think no man should touch it."

The man holding the bottle dropped it nervously, but Kabul Aqba only laughed and picked it up. "It looks more like something good to drink,"

he said. He tossed the flask to another man. "Open it." The man laid down his saber and got out a large knife, with which he hacked at the lead seal.

Abdullah saw his chance of getting unchained going. Worse, he was about to be exposed as a fraud. "It is really extremely dangerous, O rubies among robbers," he protested. "Once you have broken the seal, do not on any account draw the cork." As he spoke, the man peeled the seal away and dropped it on the sand. He began prying the cork out, while another man held the bottle steady for him. "If you must draw the cork,"

Abdullah babbled, "at least tap on the bottle the correct and mystical number of times and make the genie inside swear-"

The cork came out. Pop. A thin mauvish vapor came smoking 60.out of the neck of the flask. Abdullah hoped the thing was full of poison. But the vapor almost instantly thickened to a cloud that came rushing out of the bottle like a kettle boiling bluish mauve steam. This steam shaped itself into a face-large and angry and blue-and arms, and a wisp of body connected to the bottle, and went on rushing forth until it was easily ten feet tall.

"I made a vow!" the face howled, in a large, windy roar. "The one who lets me out shall suffer. Therel" The misty arms gestured.

The two men holding the cork and the bottle seemed to wink out of existence. Cork and bottle both fell to the ground, forcing the genie tobillow sideways from the neck of the bottle. From the midst of his blue vapor, two large toads came crawling and seemed to gaze around in bewilderment. The genie came slowly and vaporously upright, hovering above the bottle with his smoky arms folded and a look of utter hatred on his misty face.

By this time everyone had run away except for Abdullah and Kabul Aqba, Abdullah because he could barely move in his chains and Kabul Aqba because he was clearly unexpectedly brave. The genie glowered at the two of them.

"I am the slave of the bottle," he said. "Much as I hate and detest the whole arrangement, I have to tell you that he who owns me is allowed one wish every day and I am forced to grant it." And he added menacingly, "What is your wish?"

"I wish-" began Abdullah.

Kabul Aqba quickly rammed his hand across Abdullah's mouth. "I am the one wishing," he said. "Get that quite clear, genie!"

"I hear," said the genie. "What wish?"

"One moment," said Kabul Aqba. He put his face close to Abdullah's ear.