Castle In The Air Part 5

His breath smelled even worse than his hand, although neither, Abdullah had to admit, was a patch on Jamal's dog. "Well, magician," the bandit whispered, "you've proved you know what you're talking about. Advise me what to wish and I'll make you a free man and an honored member of my band. But if you try to make a wish yourself, I kill you. Understand?"

He put the muzzle of 61.his pistol to Abdullah's head and let go of his mouth. "What shall I wish?"

"Well," said Abdullah, "the wisest and kindest wish would be to wish your two toads turned back into men."

Kabul Aqba spared a surprised glance for the two toads. They were crawling uncertainly along the muddy edge of the pool, obviously wondering whether they could swim or not. "A waste of a wish," he said.

"Think again."

Abdullah racked his brain for what might please a bandit chief most.

"You could ask for limitless wealth, of course," he said, "but you would then need to carry your money, so perhaps you should first wish for a team of st.u.r.dy camels. And you would need to defend this treasure.

Perhaps your first wish should be for a supply of the famous weapons of the north, or-"

"But which?" demanded Kabul Aqba. "Hurry. The genie is becoming impatient."

This was true. The genie was not exactly tapping his foot, since he had no feet to tap, but there was something about his looming, lowering blue face that suggested there would be two more toads by the pool if he had to wait much longer.

A very short burst of thought was enough to convince Abdullah that his situation, despite the chains, would be very much worse if he became a toad. "Why not wish for a feast?" he said lamely."That's better!" said Kabul Aqba. He clapped Abdullah on the shoulder and sprang up jovially. "I wish for a most lavish feast," he said.

The genie bowed, rather like a candle flame bending in a draft. "Done,"

he said sourly. "And much good may it do you." And he poured himself carefully back into his bottle again.

It was a very lavish feast. It arrived almost at once, with a dull whoomping noise, on a long table with a striped awning above it for shade, and with it arrived liveried slaves to serve it. The rest of the bandits rather quickly got over their fear and came racing back to lounge on cushions and eat delicate food from golden dishes and to shout at the slaves for more, more, more! The servants were, Ab 62.dullah found when he got a chance to talk to some of them, the slaves of the Sultan of Zanzib himself, and the feast should have been the Sultan's.

This news made Abdullah feel just a little better. He spent the feast still in chains, hitched up against a handy palm tree. Though he had not expected anything better from Kabul Aqba, it was still hard. At least Kabul Aqba remembered him from time to time and, with a lordly wave of his hand, sent a slave over with a golden dish or a jug of wine.

For there was plenty. Every so often there was another m.u.f.fled whoomp and a fresh course would arrive, carried by more bewildered slaves, or there would be what looked like the pick of the Sultan's wine cellar loaded onto a jeweled trolley, or an astonished group of musicians.

Whenever Kabul Aqba sent a new slave over to Abdullah, Abdullah found that slave only too ready to answer questions.

"In truth, n.o.ble captive of a desert king," one told him, "the Sultan was most enraged when the first and second courses so mysteriously disappeared. On the third course, which is this roast peac.o.c.k that I carry, he placed a guard of mercenaries to escort us from the kitchen, but we were s.n.a.t.c.hed from beside them, even at the very door of the banquet hall, and instantly found ourselves in this oasis instead."

The Sultan, Abdullah thought, must be getting hungrier and hungrier.

Later a troupe of dancing girls appeared, s.n.a.t.c.hed in the same way. That must have enraged the Sultan even more. These dancers made Abdullah melancholy. He thought of Flower-in-the-Night, who was twice as beautiful as any of them, and tears came into his eyes. As the jollity around the table grew, the two toads sat in the shallow edge of the pond, hooting mournfully. No doubt they felt at least as bad about things as Abdullah did.

The moment night fell, the slaves, the musicians, and the dancing girls all vanished, though what was left of the food and wine stayed. The bandits by then had glutted themselves and then 63.sated themselves again after that. Most of them fell asleep where they sat. But to Abdullah's dismay, Kabul Aqba got up-a little unsteadily-and collected the genie bottle from under the table. He made sure it was corked. Then he staggered over to the magic carpet and lay down on itwith the bottle in his hand. He fell asleep almost at once.

Abdullah sat against the palm tree in increasing anxiety. If the genie had returned the stolen slaves to the palace in Zanzib-and it seemed likely that he had-then someone was going to ask them angry questions.

They would all tell the same story of being forced to serve a band of robbers, while a well-dressed young man in chains sat and watched from a palm tree. The Sultan would put two and two together. He was no fool.

Even now a troop of soldiers could be setting out on fast racing camels to hunt the desert for a certain small oasis.

But that was not the greatest of Abdullah's worries. He watched the sleeping Kabul Aqba in even greater anxiety. He was about to lose the magic carpet and, of course, an extremely useful genie with it.

Sure enough, after about half an hour Kabul Aqba rolled over on to his back and his mouth came open. As no doubt Jamal's dog had done, as Abdullah himself must have done-but surely not so very loudly?-Kabul Aqba uttered an enormous rasping snore. The carpet quivered. Abdullah saw it clearly in the light of the rising moon rise a foot or so from the ground, where it hung and waited. Abdullah conjectured that it was busy interpreting whatever dream Kabul Aqba was having just then. What a bandit chief might dream about Abdullah had no idea, but the carpet knew. It soared into the air and began to fly.

Abdullah looked up as it glided over the palm fronds above him and had one last try at influencing it. "O most unfortunate carpet!" he called out softly. "I would have treated you so much more kindly!"

Maybe the carpet heard him. Or maybe it was an accident. But something roundish and faintly glimmering rolled off the edge of 64 64.

the carpet and dropped with a light thunk on the sand a few feet from Abdullah. It was the genie bottle. Abdullah reached out, as quickly as he could without too much rattling and jingling of his chains, and dragged the bottle into hiding between his back and the palm tree. Then he sat and waited for morning, feeling decidedly more hopeful.

8.

In which Abdullah's dreams continue to come true

The moment the sun flushed the sand dunes with white-rosy light, Abdullah wrenched the cork out of the genie's bottle. The vapor steamed forth, became a jet, and rushed upward into the blue-mauve shape of the genie, who looked, if possible, angrier than ever. "I said one wish a day!" the windy voice announced.

"Yes, well, this is a new day, O mauve magnificence, and I am your new owner," said Abdullah. "And this wish is simple. I wish these chains of mine gone."

"Hardly worth wasting a wish on," the genie said contemptuously, and dwindled rapidly away inside the bottle again. Abdullah was just about to protest that though this wish might seem trivial to a genie, being without chains was important to him when he found himself able to movefreely, without rattling. He looked down and found the chains had vanished.

He put the cork carefully back in the bottle and stood up. He was horribly stiff. Before he could move at all, he had to make himself think of fleet camels with soldiers on them speeding toward this oasis and then of what would happen if the sleeping bandits woke to find him standing there without his chains. That got him moving.

66.He hobbled like an old man toward the banquet table. There, very careful not to disturb the various bandits who were asleep with their faces on the cloth, he collected food and wrapped it in a napkin. He took a flask of wine and tied it and the genie bottle to his belt with two more napkins. He took a last napkin to cover his head in case he got sunstroke-travelers had told him this was a real danger in the desert-and then he set off, as swiftly as he could limp, out of the oasis and due north.

The stiffness wore off as he walked. Walking became almost pleasant then, and for the first half of the morning Abdullah strode out with a will, thinking of Flower-in-the-Night and eating succulent meat pies and swigging from the wine flask as he walked. The second half of the morning was not so good. The sun swung overhead. The sky became glaring white, and everything shimmered. Abdullah started to wish that he had poured the wine away and filled the flask at the muddy pond instead.

Wine did nothing for thirst except make it worse. He wet the napkin with wine and laid it over the back of his neck, where it kept drying out far too quickly. By midday he thought he was dying. The desert swayed about before his eyes, and the glare hurt. He felt like a sort of human cinder.

"It seems that Fate has decreed that I live through my entire daydream in reality!" he croaked.

Up till then he had thought he had imagined his escape from the villainous Kabul Aqba in masterly detail, but now he knew he had never even conceived of how horrible it was to stagger in blaring heat, with sweat running into his eyes. He had not imagined the way the sand somehow got into everything, including his mouth. Nor had his daydream allowed for the difficulty of steering by the sun when the sun was right overhead. The tiny puddle of shadow around his feet gave him no guide to direction. He had to keep looking behind to check that his line of footprints was straight. This worried him because it wasted time.

In the end, wasted time or not, he was forced to stop and rest, squatting in a dip in the sands where there was a small piece of shade.

He still felt like a piece of meat laid out on Jamal's charcoal grill.

He soaked the napkin in wine and spread it over his head and 67.then watched it drip red blobs on his best clothes. The only thing that convinced him he was not going to die was that prophecy about Flower-in-the-Night. If Fate had decreed that she was to marry him, then he had to survive because he had not yet married her. After that he thought of the prophecy about himself, written down by his father. It could have more than one meaning. In fact, it could already have come true, for had he not risen above everyone in the land by flying on the magic carpet? Or perhaps it did refer to a forty- foot stake.This notion forced Abdullah to get up and walk again.

The afternoon was worse still. Abdullah was young and fit, but the life of a carpet merchant does not include long walks. He ached from his heels to the top of his head-not forgetting his toes, which seemed to have worn raw. In addition, one of his boots turned out to rub where the money pocket was. His legs were so tired he could hardly move them. But he knew he had to put the horizon between himself and the oasis before the bandits started looking for him or the line of fleet camels appeared. Since he was not sure how far it was to the horizon, he slogged on.

By evening all that kept him going was the knowledge that he would be seeing Flower-in-the-Night tomorrow. That was to be his next wish to the genie. Apart from that, he vowed to give up drinking wine and swore never to look at a grain of sand again.

When night fell, he toppled into a sandbank and slept.

At dawn his teeth were chattering and he was anxiously wondering about frostbite. The desert was as cold by night as it was hot by day. Still, Abdullah knew his troubles were almost over. He sat on the warmer side of the sandbank, looking east into the golden flush of dawn, and refreshed himself with the last of his food and afinal swig of the hateful wine. His teeth stopped chattering, though his mouth tasted as if it belonged to Jamal's dog.

Now. Smiling in antic.i.p.ation, Abdullah eased the cork out of the genie's bottle.

Out gushed the mauve smoke and rolled upward into the genie's unfriendly form. "What are you grinning about?" asked the windy voice.

68."My wish, O amethyst among genies, of color more beautiful than pansies . . ." Abdullah replied. "May violets scent your breath. I wish you to transport me to the side of my bride-to-be, Flower-in-the-Night."

"Oh, do you?" The genie folded his smoky arms and turned himself to look in all directions. This, to Abdullah's fascination, turned the part of him that was joined to the bottle into a neat corkscrew shape. "Where is this young woman?" the genie said irritably when he was facing Abdullah again. "I can't seem to locate her."

"She was carried off by a djinn from her night garden in the Sultan's palace in Zanzib," Abdullah explained.

"That accounts for it," said the genie. "I can't grant your wish. She's nowhere on earth."

"Then she must be in the realm of the djinns," Abdullah said anxiously.

"Surely you, O purple prince among genies, must know that realm like the back of your hand."

"That shows how little you know," the genie said. "A genie confined to a bottle is debarred from any of the spirit realms. If that's where your girl is, I can't take you there. I advise you to put the cork back in my bottle and be on your way. There's quite a large troop of camels coming up from the south."Abdullah sprang to the top of the sandbank. Sure enough, there was the line of fleet camels he had been dreading, speeding toward him with smooth waltzing strides. Though distance made them visible only as indigo shadows just then, he could tell from the outlines that the riders were armed to the teeth.

"See?" said the genie, bellying upward to the same height as Abdullah.

"They might miss finding you, but I doubt it." The idea clearly gave him pleasure.

"You must grant me a different wish, quickly," said Abdullah.

"Oh, no," said the genie. "One wish a day. You've already made one."

"Certainly I did, O splendor of lilac vapors," Abdullah agreed with the speed of desperation, "but that was a wish you were unable to grant. And the terms, as I clearly heard when you first stated 69.them, were that you were forced to grant your owner one wish a day. This you have not yet done."

"Heaven preserve me!" the genie said disgustedly. "The young man is a coffee shop lawyer."

"Naturally I am!" said Abdullah with some heat. "I am a citizen of Zanzib, where every child learns to guard its rights, for it is certain that no one else will guard them. And I claim you have not yet granted me a wish today."

"A quibble," the genie said, swaying gracefully opposite him with folded arms. "One wish has been made."

"But not granted," said Abdullah.

"It is not my fault if you choose to ask for things which are impossible," said the genie. "There are a million beautiful girls I can take you to, instead. You can have a mermaid if you fancy green hair. Or can't you swim?"

The speeding line of camels was now a good deal nearer. Abdullah said hurriedly, "Think, O puce pearl of magic, and soften your heart. Those soldiers approaching us will certainly seize your bottle from me when they reach us. If they take you back to the Sultan, he will force you to do mighty deeds daily, bringing him armies and weapons and conquering his enemies for him, most exhaustingly. If they keep you for themselves-and they might, for not all soldiers are quite honest-you will be pa.s.sed from hand to hand and be made to grant many wishes each day, one for each of the squad. In either case, you will be working far harder than you will work for me, who want only one small thing."

"What eloquence!" said the genie. "Though you have a point. But have you thought, on the other hand, what opportunities the Sultan or his soldiers will give me to work havoc?"

"Havoc?" asked Abdullah, with his eyes anxiously on the speeding camels.

"I never said my wishes were supposed to do anyone any good," said thegenie. "In fact, I swore that they would always do as much harm as possible. Those bandits, for instance, are now all 70.on their way to prison or worse, for stealing the Sultan's feast. The soldiers found them late last night."

"You are causing worse havoc with me for not granting me a wish!" said Abdullah. "And unlike the bandits, I do not deserve it."

"Regard yourself as unlucky," said the genie. "This will make two of us.

1 don't deserve to be shut in this bottle, either."

The riders were now near enough to see Abdullah. He could hear shouts in the distance and see weapons being unslung. "Give me tomorrow's wish, then," he said urgently.

"That might be the solution," the genie agreed, rather to Abdullah's surprise. "What wish then?"

"Transport me to the nearest person who can help me find Flower-in-the-Night," said Abdullah, and he bounded down the sandbank and picked the bottle up. "Quickly," he added to the genie, now billowing above him.

The genie seemed a little puzzled. "This is odd," he said. "My powers of divination are usually excellent, but I can't make head or tail of this."

A bullet plowed into the sand not too far away. Abdullah ran, carrying the genie like a vast streaming mauve candle flame. "Just take me to that person!" he screamed.

"I suppose I'd better," said the genie. "Maybe you can make some sense out of it."

The earth seemed to spin past under Abdullah's running feet. Shortly he seemed to be taking vast loping strides across lands that were whirling forward to meet him. Though the combined speed of his own feet and the turning world made everything into a blur, except for the genie streaming placidly out of the bottle in his hand, Abdullah knew that the speeding camels were left behind in instants. He smiled and loped on, almost as placid as the genie, rejoicing in the cool wind. He seemed to lope for a long time. Then it all stopped.

Abdullah stood in the middle of a country road, getting his breath. This new place took a certain amount of getting used to. It was cool, only as warm as Zanzib in springtime, and the light was different. Though the sun was shining brightly from a blue sky, it 71.put out a light that was lower and bluer than Abdullah was used to. This may have been because there were so many very leafy trees lining the road and casting shifting green shade over everything. Or it may have been due to the green, green gra.s.s growing on the verges. Abdullah let his eyes adjust and then looked around for the person who was supposed to help him find Flower-in-the-Night.

All he could see was what seemed to be an inn on a bend in the road, setback among the trees. It struck Abdullah as a wretched place. It was made of wood and white-painted plaster, like the poorest of poor dwellings in Zanzib, and its owners only seemed able to afford a roof made of tightly packed gra.s.s. Someone had tried to beautify the place by planting red and yellow flowers by the road. The inn sign, which was swinging on a post planted among the flowers, was a bad artist's effort to paint a lion.

Abdullah looked down at the genie's bottle, intending to put the cork back into it now he had arrived. He was annoyed to find he seemed to have dropped the cork, either in the desert or on the journey. Oh, well, he thought. He held the bottle up to his face. "Where is the person who can help me find Flower-in-the-Night?" he asked.

A wisp of steam smoked from the bottle, looking much bluer in the light of this strange land. "Asleep on a bench in front of the Red Lion," the wisp said irritably, and withdrew back into the bottle. The genie's hollow voice came from inside it. "He appeals to me. He shines with dishonesty."

72.In which Abdullah encounters an old soldier Abdullah walked toward the inn. When he got closer, he saw that there was indeed a man dozing on one of the wooden settles that had been placed outside the inn. There were tables there, too, suggesting that the place also served food. Abdullah slid into a settle behind one of the tables and looked dubiously across at the sleeping man.

He looked like an outright ruffian. Even in Zanzib, or among the bandits, Abdullah had never seen such dishonest lines as there were on this man's tanned face. A big pack on the ground beside him made Abdullah think at first that he might be a tinker-except that he was clean-shaven. The only other men Abdullah had seen without beards or mustaches were the Sultan's northern mercenaries. It was possible this man was a mercenary soldier. His clothes did look like the broken-down remains of some kind of uniform, and he wore his hair in a single pigtail down his back in the way the Sultan's men did. This was a fashion the men of Zanzib found quite disgusting, for it was rumored that the pigtail was never undone or washed. Looking at this man's pigtail, draped over the back of the settle where he slept, Abdullah could believe this. Neither it nor anything else about the man was clean. All the same, he looked 73.strong and healthy, although he was not young. His hair under its dirt seemed to be iron gray.

Abdullah hesitated to wake the fellow. He did not look trustworthy. And the genie had openly admitted that he granted wishes in a way that would cause havoc. This man may lead me -to Flowerin-the-Night, Abdullah mused, but he will certainly rob me on the way.

While he hesitated, a woman in an ap.r.o.n came to the inn doorway, perhaps to see if there were customers outside. Her clothes made her into a plump hourgla.s.s shape which Abdullah found very foreign and displeasing."Oh!" she said, when she saw Abdullah. "Were you waiting to be served, sir? You should have banged on the table. That's what they all do around here. What'll you have?"

She spoke in the same barbarous accent as the northern mercenaries. From it Abdullah concluded that he was now in whatever country those men came from. He smiled at her. "What are youoffering, O jewel of the wayside?"

he asked her.

Evidently no one had ever called the woman a jewel before. She blushed and simpered and twisted her ap.r.o.n. "Well, there's bread and cheese now," she said. "But dinner's doing. If you care to wait half an hour, sir, you can have a good game pie with vegetables from our kitchen garden."

Abdullah thought this sounded perfect, far better than he would have expected from any inn with a gra.s.s roof. "Then I would most gladly wait half an hour, O flower among hostesses," he said.

She gave him another simper. "And perhaps a drink while you wait, sir?"

"Certainly," said Abdullah, who was still very thirsty from the desert.

"Could I trouble you for a gla.s.s of sherbet-or, failing that, the juice of any fruit?"

She looked worried. "Oh, sir, I-we don't go in much for fruit juice, and I never heard of the other stuff. How about a nice mug of beer?"

"What is beer?" Abdullah asked cautiously.