Castle In The Air Part 7

Glorious!"

It was indeed glorious. Clouds had come up from the south and had spread like a ruby landscape across the sky. Abdullah saw ranges of purple mountains flushed wine red in one part; a smoking 87.orange rift like the heart of a volcano; a calm rosy lake. Out beyond, laid against an infinity of gold-blue sky-sea, were islands, reefs, bays, and promontories. It was as if they were looking at the seacoast of heaven or the land that looks westward to Paradise.

"And that cloud there," the soldier said, pointing. "Doesn't that one look just like a castle?"

It did. It stood on a high headland above a sky-lagoon, a marvel of slender gold, ruby, and indigo turrets. A glimpse of golden sky through the tallest tower was like a window. It reminded Abdullah poignantly of the cloud he had seen above the Sultan's palace while he was being dragged off to the dungeon. Though it was not in the least the same shape, it brought back his sorrows to him so forcefully that he cried out.

"O Flower-in-the-Night, where are you?"

88.In which a wild animal causes Abdullah to waste a wish The soldier turned on his elbow and stared at Abdullah. "What's that supposed to mean?" "Nothing," said Abdullah, "except that my life has been full of disappointments."

"Tell," said the soldier. "Unburden. I told you about me, after all.""You would never believe me," said Abdullah. "My sorrows surpa.s.s even yours, most murderous musketeer."

"Try me," said the soldier.

Somehow it was not hard to tell, what with the sunset and the misery that sunset brought surging up in Abdullah. So, as the castle slowly spread and dissolved into sandbars in the sky-lagoon and the whole sunset faded gently to purple, to brown, and finally to three dark red streaks like the healing claw marks on the soldier's face, Abdullah told the soldier his story. Or at any rate, he told the gist of it. He did not, of course, tell anything so personal as his own daydreams or the uncomfortable way they had of coming true lately, and he was very careful to say nothing at all about the genie. He did not trust the soldier not to take the bottle and vanish with it during the night, and he was helped in this editing of the facts by a 89.strong suspicion that the soldier had not told his whole story, either.

The end of the story was quite difficult to tell with the genie left out, but Abdullah thought he managed rather well. He gave the impression he had escaped from his chains and from the bandits more or less by willpower alone, and then that he had walked all the way north to Ingary.

"Hmm," said the soldier when Abdullah had done. Musingly he put more spicy bushes on the fire, which was now the only light left. "Quite a life. But I must say it makes up for a good deal, being fated to marry a princess. It's something I always had a fancy to do myself-marry a nice quiet princess with a bit of a kingdom and a kindly nature. Bit of a daydream of mine, really."

Abdullah found he had a splendid idea. "It is quite possible you can,"

he said quietly. "The day I met you I was granted a dream-a vision-in which a smoky angel the color of lavender came to me and pointed you out to me, O cleverest of crusaders, as you slept on a bench outside an inn.

He said that you could aid me powerfully in finding Flower-in-the-Night.

And if you did, said the angel, your reward would be that you would marry another princess yourself." This was-or would be-almost perfectly true, Abdullah told himself. He had only to make the correct wish to the genie tomorrow. Or rather, the day after tomorrow, he reminded himself, since the genie had forced him to use tomorrow's wish today. "Will you help me?" he asked, watching the soldier's firelit face rather anxiously. "For this great reward."

The soldier seemed neither eager nor dismayed. He considered. "Not sure quite what I could do to help," he said at last. "I'm not an expert on djinns, for a start. We don't seem to get them this far north. You'd need to ask some of these d.a.m.n Ingary wizards what djinns do with princesses when they steal them. The wizards would know. I could help you squeeze the facts out of one, if you like. It would be a pleasure.

But as for a princess, they don't grow on trees, you know. The nearest one must be the King of Ingary's daughter, way off in Kingsbury. If she's what your smoky angel friend had in mind, then I guess you and me'd better walk down that way and 90.see. The king's tame wizards mostly live down that way, too, so theytell me, so it seems to fit in. That idea suit you?"

"Excellently well, military friend of my bosom!" said Abdullah.

"Then that's settled, but I don't promise anything, mind," said the soldier. He fetched two blankets out of his pack and suggested that they build up the fire and settle down to sleep.

Abdullah unhitched the genie bottle from his belt and put it carefully on the smooth rock beside him on the other side from the soldier. Then he wrapped himself in the blanket and settled down for what proved to be rather a disturbed night. The rock was hard. And though he was nothing like as cold as he had been yesterday night in the desert, the damper air of Ingary made him shiver just as much. In addition, the moment he closed his eyes he found he became obsessed with the wild beast in the cave up the ravine. He kept imagining he could hear it prowling around the camp. Once or twice he opened his eyes and even thought he saw something moving just beyond the light from the fire. He sat up each time and threw more wood on the fire, whereupon the flames flared up and showed him that nothing was there. It was a long time before he fell properly asleep. When he did, he had a h.e.l.lish dream.

He dreamed that around dawn a djinn came and sat on his chest. He opened his eyes to tell it to go away and found it was not a djinn at all, but the beast from the cave. It stood with its two vast front paws planted on his chest, glaring down at him with eyes that were like bluish lamps in the velvety blackness of its coat. As far as Abdullah could tell, it was a demon in the form of a huge black panther.

He sat up with a yell.

Naturally nothing was there. Dawn was just breaking. The fire was a cherry smudge in the grayness of everything, and the soldier was a darker gray hump, snoring gently on the other side of the fire. Behind him the lower lands were white with mist. Wearily Abdullah put another bush on the fire and fell asleep again.

He was woken by the windy roaring of the genie.

"Stop this thing! Get it OFF me!"

Abdullah leaped up. The soldier leaped up. It was broad 91.daylight. There was no mistaking what they both saw. A small black cat was crouching by the genie bottle, just beside the place where Abdullah's head had been. The cat was either very curious or convinced there was food in the bottle, for it had its nose delicately but firmly in the neck of the flask. Around its neat black head the genie was gushing out in ten or twelve distorted blue wisps, and the wisps kept turning into hands or faces and then turning back to smoke again.

"Help me!" he yelled in chorus. "It's trying to eat me or something!"

The cat ignored the genie entirely. It just went on behaving as if there were a most enticing smell in the bottle.

In Zanzib everyone hated cats. People thought of them as very little better than the rats and mice they ate. If a cat came near you, youkicked it, and you drowned any kittens you could lay hands on.

Accordingly Abdullah ran at the cat, aiming a flying kick at it as heran. "Shoo!" he yelled. "Scat!"

The cat jumped. Somehow it avoided Abdullah's lashing foot and fled to the top of the overhanging rock, where it spat at him and glared. It was not deaf then, Abdullah thought, staring up into its eyes. They were bluish. So that was what had sat on him in the night! He picked up a stone and drew back his arm to throw it.

"Don't do that!" said the soldier. "Poor little animal!"

The cat did not wait for Abdullah to throw the stone. It shot out of sight. "There is nothing poor about that beast," he said. "You must realize, gentle gunman, that the creature nearly took your eye out last night."

"I know," the soldier said mildly. "It was only defending itself,poor thing. Is that a genie in that flask of yours? Your smoky blue friend?"

A traveler with a carpet for sale had once told Abdullah that most people in the north were unaccountably sentimental about animals.

Abdullah shrugged and turned sourly to the genie bottle, where the genie had vanished without a word of thanks. This would have to happen! Now he would have to watch the bottle like a hawk. "Yes," he said.

92."I thought it might be," said the soldier. "I've heard tell of genies.

Come and look at this, will you?" He stooped and picked up his hat, very carefully, smiling in a strange, tender way.

There seemed definitely to be something wrong with the soldier this morning, as if his brains had softened in the night. Abdullah wondered if it was those scratches, although they had almost vanished by now.

Abdullah went over to him anxiously.

Instantly the cat was standing on the overhanging rock again, making that iron pulley noise, anger and worry in every line of its small black body. Abdullah ignored it and looked into the soldier's hat. Round blue eyes stared at him out of its greasy interior. A little pink mouth hissed defiance as the tiny black kitten inside scrambled to the back of the hat, whipping its minute bottle brush of a tail for balance.

"Isn't it sweet?" the soldier said besottedly.

Abdullah glanced at the wauling cat on top of the rock. He froze, and looked again carefully. The thing was huge. A mighty black panther stood there, baring its big white fangs at him.

"These animals must belong to a witch, courageous companion," he said shakily.

"If they did, then the witch must be dead or something," the soldier said. "You saw them. They were living wild in that cave. That mother cat must have carried her kitten all the way here in the night. Marvelous, isn't it? She must have known we'd help her!" He looked up at the huge beast snarling on the rock and did not seem to notice the size of it.

"Come on down, sweet thing!" he said wheedlingly. "You know we won't hurt you or your kitten."The mother beast launched herself from the rock. Abdullah gave a strangled scream, dodged, and sat down heavily. The great black body hurtled past above him-and to his surprise, the soldier started to laugh. Abdullah looked up indignantly to find that the beast had become a small black cat again, and was most affectionately walking about on the soldier's broad shoulder and rubbing herself on his face.

"Oh, you're a wonder, little Midnight!" The soldier chuckled.

93."You know I'll take care of your Whippersnapper for you, don't you?

That's right. You purr!"

Abdullah got up disgustedly and turned his back on this love feast. The saucepan had been cleaned out very thoroughly in the night. The tin plate was burnished. He went and washed both, meaningly, in the stream, hoping the soldier would soon forget these dangerous magical beasts and begin thinking about breakfast.

But when the soldier finally put the hat down and tenderly plucked the mother cat off his shoulder, it was breakfast for cats that he thought about. "They'll need milk," he said, "and a nice plate of fresh fish.

Get that genie of yours to fetch them some."

A jet of blue-mauve spurted from the neck of the bottle and spread into a sketch of the genie's irritated face. "Oh, no," said the genie. "One wish a day is all I give, and he had today's wish yesterday. Go and fish in the stream."

The soldier advanced on the genie angrily. "There won't be any fish this high in the mountain," he said. "And that little Midnight is starving, and she's got her kitten to feed."

"Too bad!" said the genie. "And don't you try to threaten me, soldier.

Men have become toads for less."

The soldier was certainly a brave man-or a very foolish one, Abdullah thought. "You do that to me, and I'll break your bottle, whatever shape I'm in!" he shouted. "I'm not wanting a wish formyself."

"I prefer people to be selfish," the genie retorted. "So you want to be a toad?"

Further blue smoke gushed out of the bottle and formed into arms making gestures that Abdullah was afraid he recognized. "No, no, stop, I implore you, O sapphire among spirits!" he said hastily. "Let the soldier alone, and consent, as a great favor, to grant me another wish a day in advance, that the animals might be fed."

"Do you want to be a toad, too?" the genie inquired.

"If it is written in the prophecy that Flower-in-the-Night shall marry a toad, then make me a toad," Abdullah said piously. "But first fetch milk and fish, great genie."

94.The genie swirled moodily. "Bother the prophecy! I can't go againstthat. All right. You can have your wish, provided you leave me in peace for the next two days."

Abdullah sighed. It was a dreadful waste of a wish. "Very well."

A crock of milk and an oval plate with a salmon on it plunked down on the rock by his feet. The genie gave Abdullah a look of huge dislike and sucked himself back inside the bottle.

"Great work!" said the soldier, and proceeded to make a large pother over poaching salmon in milk and making sure there were no bones the cat might choke on.

The cat, Abdullah noticed, had all this while been peacefully licking at her kitten in the hat. She did not seem to know the genie was there. But she knew about the salmon all right. As soon as it started cooking, she left her kitten and wound herself around the soldier, thin and urgent and mewing. "Soon, soon, my black darling!" the soldier said.

Abdullah could only suppose that the cat's magic and the genie's were so different that they were unable to perceive each other. The one good thing he could see about the situation was that there was plenty of salmon and milk for the two humans as well. While the cat daintily guzzled, and her kitten lapped, and sneezed, and did his amateur best to drink salmon-flavored milk, the soldier and Abdullah feasted on porridge made with milk and roast salmon steak.

After such a breakfast Abdullah felt kinder toward the whole world. He told himself that the genie could not have made a better choice of companion for him than this soldier. The genie was not so bad. And he would surely be seeing Flower-in-the-Night soon now. He was thinking that the Sultan and Kabul Aqba were not such bad fellows either when he discovered, to his outrage, that the soldier intended to take the cat and her kitten along with them to Kingsbury.

"But, most benevolent bombardier and considerate cuira.s.sier," he protested, "what will become of your scheme to earn your bounty? You cannot rob robbers with a kitten in your hat!"

95."I reckon I won't need to do any of that now you've promised me a princess," the soldier answered calmly. "And no one could leave Midnight and Whippersnapper to starve on this mountain. That's cruel!"

Abdullah knew he had lost this argument. He sourly tied the genie bottle to his belt and vowed never to promise the soldier anything else. The soldier repacked his pack, scattered the fire, and gently picked up his hat with the kitten in it. He set off downhill beside the stream, whistling to Midnight as if she were a dog.

Midnight, however, had other ideas. As Abdullah set off after the soldier, she stood in his way, staring meaningly up at him. Abdullah took no notice and tried to edge past her. And she was promptly huge again. A black panther, if possible even larger than before, was barring his way and snarling. He stopped, frankly terrified. And the beast leaped at him. He was too frightened even to scream. He shut his eyes and waited to have his throat torn out. So much for Fate and prophecies!

A softness touched his throat instead. Small, firm feet hit hisshoulder, and another set of such feet p.r.i.c.ked his chest. Abdullah opened his eyes to find that Midnight was back to cat size and clinging to the front of his jacket. The green-blue eyes looking up into his said, "Carry me. Or else."

"Very well, formidable feline," Abdullah said. "But take care not to snag any more of the embroidery on this jacket. This was once my best suit. And please remember that I carry you under strong protest. I do not love cats."

Midnight calmly scrambled her way to Abdullah's shoulder, where she sat smugly balancing while Abdullah plodded and slithered his way down the mountain for the rest of that day.

96.In which the law catches up with Abdullah and the soldier By evening Abdullah was almost used to Midnight. Unlike Jamal's dog, she smelled extremely clean, and she was clearly an excellent mother. The only times she dismounted from Abdullah were to feed her kitten. If it had not been for her alarming habit of turning huge at him when he annoyed her, Abdullah felt he could come to tolerate her in time. The kitten, he conceded, was charming. It played with the end of the soldier's pigtail and tried to chase b.u.t.terflies-in a wobbly way-when they stopped for lunch. The rest of the day it spent in the front of the soldier's jacket, peeping eagerly forth at the gra.s.s and the trees and at the fern-lined waterfalls they pa.s.sed on their way to the plains. But Abdullah was entirely disgusted at the fuss the soldier made about his new pets when they stopped for the night. They decided to stay in the inn they came to in the first valley, and here the soldier decreed that his cats were to have the best of everything. The innkeeper and his wife shared Abdullah's opinion. They were lumpish folk who had, it seemed, been put in a bad mood anyway by the mysterious theft of a crock of milk and a whole salmon that morning. They ran about with dour disapproval, fetching just the right shape of basket and a soft pillow to put in it.

They 97.hurried grimly with cream and chicken liver and fish. They grudgingly produced certain herbs which, the soldier declared, prevented canker in the ears. They stormily sent out for other herbs which were supposed to cure a cat of worms. But they were downright incredulous when they were asked to heat water for a bath because the soldier suspected that Whippersnapper had picked up a flea.

Abdullah found himself forced to negotiate. "O prince and princess of publicans," he said, "bear with the eccentricity of my excellent friend.

When he says a bath, he means, of course, a bath for himself and for me.

We are both somewhat travel-stained and would welcome clean hot water-for which we will, of course, pay whatever extra is necessary."

"What? Me? Bath?" the soldier said when the innkeeper and his wife had stumped off to put big kettles to boil.

"Yes. You," said Abdullah. "Or you and your cats and I part company this very evening. The dog of my friend Jamal in Zanzib was scarcely lessripe to the nose than you, O unwashed warrior, and Whippersnapper, fleas or not, is a good deal cleaner."

"But what about my princess and your sultan's daughter if you leave?"

asked the soldier.

"I shall think of something," said Abdullah. "But I should prefer it if you got into a bath and, if you wish, took Whippersnapper into it with you. That was my aim in asking for it."

"It weakens you-having baths," the soldier said dubiously. "But I suppose I could wash Midnight as well while I'm at it."

"Pray use both cats as sponges if it pleases you, infatuated infantryman," Abdullah said, and went off to revel in his own bath. In Zanzib people bathed a lot because the climate was so hot. Abdullah was used to visiting the public baths at least every other day, and he was missing that. Even Jamal went to the baths once a week, and it was rumored that he took his dog into the water with him. The soldier, Abdullah thought, becoming soothed by the hot water, was really no more besotted with his cats than Jamal was with his dog. He hoped that Jamal and his dog had managed to escape and, if they had, that they were not at this moment suffering hardships in the desert.

98.The soldier did not appear any weaker for his bath, although his skin had turned a much paler brown. Midnight, it seemed, had fled at the mere sight of water, but Whippersnapper, so the soldier claimed, had loved every moment. "He played with the soap bubbles!" he said dotingly.

"I hope you think you're worth all this trouble," Abdullah said to Midnight as she sat on his bed delicately cleaning herself after her cream and chicken. Midnight turned and gave him a round-eyed scornful look-of course she was worth it!-before she went back to the serious business of washing her ears.

The bill, next morning, was enormous. Most of the extra charge was for hot water, but cushions, baskets, and herbs figured quite largely on the list, too. Abdullah paid, shuddering, and anxiously inquired how far it was to Kingsbury.

Six days, he was told, if a person went on foot.

Six days! Abdullah nearly groaned aloud. Six days at this rate of expense, and he would barely be able to afford to keep Flower-intheNight in the state of direst poverty when he found her. And he had to look forward to six days of the soldier's making this sort of fuss about the cats, before they could collar a wizard and even start trying to find her. No, Abdullah thought. His next wish to the genie would be to have them all transported to Kingsbury. That meant he I'llwould only have to endure two more days.

Comforted by this thought, Abdullah strode off down the road with Midnight serenely riding his shoulders and the genie bottle bobbing at his side. The sun shone. The greenness of the countryside was a pleasure to him after the desert. Abdullah even began to appreciate the houses with their gra.s.s roofs. They had delightful rambling gardens and many of them had roses or other flowers trained around their doors. The soldier told him that gra.s.s roofs were the custom here. It was called thatch,and it did, the soldier a.s.sured him, keep out the rain, though Abdullah found this very hard to believe.

Before long Abdullah was deep in another daydream, of himself and Flower-in-the-Night living in a cottage with a gra.s.s roof and roses around the door. He would make her such a garden that it 99.would be the envy of all for miles around. He began to plan the garden.

Unfortunately, toward the end of the morning, his daydream was interrupted by increasing spots of rain. Midnight hated it. She complained loudly in Abdullah's ear.

"b.u.t.ton her in your jacket," said the soldier.

"Not I, adorer of animals," Abdullah said. "She loves me no more than I love her. She would doubtless seize the chance to make grooves in my chest."

The soldier handed his hat to Abdullah with Whippersnapper in it, carefully covered with an unclean handkerchief, and b.u.t.toned Midnight into his own jacket. They went on for half a mile. By then the rain was pouring down.

The genie draped a ragged blue wisp over the side of his bottle. "Can't you do something about all this water that's getting in on me?"

Whippersnapper was saying much the same at the top of his small, squeaky voice. Abdullah pushed wet hair out of his eyes and felt hara.s.sed.