Castle in the Air Read online

  “I hope Ben can get some wards back on the Princess soon,” Lettie said anxiously as they rolled spankingly across an open square.

  The words were scarcely out of her mouth when there came a hurried volley of explosions, like very mismanaged fireworks. A bell began to ring somewhere, dismal and hasty—gong-gong-gong.

  “What’s all that?” asked Sophie, and then answered her own question by pointing and crying out, “Oh, confound it! Look, look, look!”

  Abdullah craned around to where she pointed. He was in time to see a black spread of wings blotting out the stars above the nearest domes and towers. Below, from the tops of several towers, came little flashes and a number of bangs as the soldiers there fired at those wings. Abdullah could have told them that that kind of thing was no use at all against a djinn. The wings wheeled imperturbably and circled upward and then vanished into the dark blue of the night sky.

  “Your friend the djinn,” Sophie said. “I think we distracted Ben at a crucial moment.”

  “The djinn intended that you should, O former feline,” Abdullah said. “If you recollect, he remarked as he was leaving that he expected one of us to help him steal the Princess.”

  Other bells around the city had joined in ringing the alarm now. People ran into the streets and stared upward. The carriage jingled on through an increasing clamor and was forced to go more and more slowly as more people gathered in the streets. Everyone seemed to know exactly what had happened. “The Princess is gone!” Abdullah heard. “A devil has stolen Princess Valeria!” Most people seemed awed and frightened, but one or two were saying, “That Royal Wizard ought to be hanged! What’s he paid for?”

  “Oh, dear!” said Lettie. “The King won’t believe for a moment how hard Ben’s been working to stop this from happening!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Sophie. “As soon as we’ve fetched Morgan, I’ll go and tell the King. I’m good at telling the King things.”

  Abdullah believed her. He sat and jittered with impatience.

  After what seemed another century but was probably only five minutes, the carriage pushed its way into the crowded innyard. It was full of people all staring upward. “Saw its wings,” he heard a man saying. “It was a monstrous bird with the Princess clutched in its talons.”

  The carriage stopped. Abdullah could give way to his impatience at last. He sprang down, shouting, “Clear the way, clear the way, O people! Here are two witches on important business!” By repeated shouting and pushing, he managed to get Sophie and Lettie to the inn door and shove them inside. Lettie was very embarrassed.

  “I wish you wouldn’t say that!” she said. “Ben doesn’t like people to know I’m a witch.”

  “He will have no time to think of it just now,” Abdullah said. He pushed the two of them past the staring landlord and to the stairs. “Here are the witches I spoke to you about, most heavenly host,” he told the man. “They are anxious about their cats.” He leaped up the stairs. He overtook Lettie, then Sophie, and raced on up the next flight. He flung open the door of the room. “Do nothing rash—” he began, and then stopped as he realized there was complete silence inside.

  The room was empty.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  In which Abdullah at last reaches the castle in the air.

  There was a cushion in a basket among the remains of supper on the table. There was a rumpled dent in one of the beds and a cloud of tobacco smoke above it, as if the soldier had been lying there smoking until very recently. The window was closed. Abdullah rushed toward it, intending to fling it open and look out—for no real reason except that it was all he could think of—and found himself tripping over a saucer full of cream. The saucer overturned, slewing thick yellow-white cream in a long streak across the magic carpet.

  Abdullah stood staring down at it. At least the carpet was still there. What did that mean? There was no sign of the soldier and certainly no sign of a noisy baby anywhere in the room. Nor, he realized, turning his eyes rapidly toward every place he could think of, was there any sign of the genie bottle.

  “Oh, no!” Sophie said, arriving at the door. “Where is he? He can’t have gone far if the carpet’s still here.”

  Abdullah wished he could be so certain of that. “Without desiring to alarm you, mother of a most mobile baby,” he said, “I have to observe that the genie appears to be missing also.”

  A small vague frown creased the skin of Sophie’s forehead. “What genie?”

  While Abdullah was remembering that as Midnight, Sophie had always seemed quite unaware that the genie existed, Lettie arrived in the room, too, panting, with one hand pressed to her side. “What’s the matter?” she gasped.

  “They’re not here,” said Sophie. “I suppose the soldier must have taken Morgan to the landlady. She must know about babies.”

  With a feeling of grasping at straws, Abdullah said, “I will go and see.” It was always just possible that Sophie was right, he thought as he sped down the first flight of stairs. It was what most men would do faced with a screaming baby suddenly—always supposing that man did not have a genie bottle in his hand.

  The lower flight of stairs was full of people coming up, men wearing tramping boots and some kind of uniform. The landlord was leading them upward, saying, “On the second floor, gentlemen. Your description fits the Strangian if he had cut off his pigtail, and the younger fellow is obviously the accomplice you speak of.”

  Abdullah turned and ran back upstairs on tiptoe, two stairs at a time.

  “There is general disaster, most bewitching pair of women!” he gasped to Sophie and Lettie. “The landlord—a perfidious publican—is bringing constables to arrest myself and the soldier. Now what can we do?”

  It was time for a strong-minded woman to take charge. Abdullah was quite glad that Sophie was one. She acted at once. She shut the door and shot its bolt. “Lend me your handkerchief,” she said to Lettie, and when Lettie passed it over, Sophie knelt and mopped the cream off the magic carpet with it. “You come over here,” she told Abdullah. “Get on this carpet with me, and tell it to take us to wherever Morgan is. You stay here, Lettie, and hold the constables up. I don’t think the carpet would carry you.”

  “Fine,” said Lettie. “I want to get back to Ben before the King starts blaming him, anyway. But I’ll give that landlord a piece of my mind first. It’ll be good practice for the King.” As strong-minded as her sister, she squared her shoulders and stuck out her elbows in a way that promised a bad time for the landlord and the constables as well.

  Abdullah was glad about Lettie, too. He crouched on the carpet and snored gently. The carpet quivered. It was a reluctant quiver. “O fabulous fabric, carbuncle and chrysolite among carpets,” Abdullah said, “this miserable clumsy churl apologizes profoundly for spilling cream upon your priceless surface—”

  Heavy knocking came at the door. “Open, in the King’s name!” bellowed someone outside.

  There was no time to flatter the carpet any further. “Carpet, I implore you,” Abdullah whispered, “transport myself and this lady to the place where the soldier has taken the baby.”

  The carpet shook itself irritably, but it obeyed. It shot forward in its usual way, straight through the closed window. Abdullah was alert enough this time actually to see the glass and the dark frame of the window for an instant, like the surface of water, as they passed through it and then soared above the silver globes that lit the street. But he doubted if Sophie was. She clutched Abdullah’s arm with both hands, and he rather thought her eyes were shut.

  “I hate heights!” she said. “It had better not be far.”

  “This excellent carpet will carry us with all possible speed, worshipful witch,” Abdullah said, trying to reassure her and the carpet together. He was not sure it worked with either of them. Sophie continued to cling painfully to his arm, uttering little, short gasps of panic, while the carpet, having made one brisk, giddy sweep just above the towers and lights of Kingsbury, swu
ng dizzily around what seemed to be the domes of the palace and began on another circuit of the city.

  “What is it doing?” gasped Sophie. Evidently her eyes were not quite shut.

  “Peace, most serene sorceress,” Abdullah reassured her. “It does but circle to gain height as birds do.” Privately he was sure the carpet had lost the trail. But as the lights and domes of Kingsbury went by underneath for the third time, he saw he had accidentally guessed right. They were now several hundred feet higher. On the fourth circuit, which was wider than the third—though quite as giddy—Kingsbury was a little jeweled cluster of lights far, far below.

  Sophie’s head bobbed as she took a downward peep. Her grip on Abdullah became even tighter, if that was possible. “Oh, goodness and awfulness!” she said. “We’re still going up! I do believe that wretched soldier has taken Morgan after the djinn!”

  They were now so high that Abdullah feared she was right. “He no doubt wished to rescue the Princess,” he said, “in hope of a large reward.”

  “He had no business to take my baby along, too!” Sophie declared. “Just wait till I see him! But how did he do it without the carpet?”

  “He must have ordered the genie to follow the djinn, O moon of motherhood,” Abdullah explained.

  To that Sophie said again, “What genie?”

  “I assure you, sharpest of sorcerous minds, that I owned a genie as well as this carpet, though you never appeared to see it,” Abdullah said.

  “Then I take your word for it,” said Sophie. “Keep talking. Talk— or I shall look down, and if I look down, I know I’ll fall off!”

  Since she was still clinging mightily to Abdullah’s arm, he knew that if she fell, then so would he. Kingsbury was now a bright, hazy dot, appearing on this side and then on that, as the carpet continued to spiral upward. The rest of Ingary was laid out around it like a huge dark blue dish. The thought of plunging all that way down made Abdullah almost as frightened as Sophie. He began hastily to tell her all his adventures, how he had met Flower-in-the-Night, how the Sultan had put him in prison, how the genie had been fished out of the oasis pool by Kabul Aqba’s men—who were really angels—and how hard it was to make a wish that the genie’s malice did not spoil.

  By this time he could see the desert as a pale sea south of Ingary, though they were so high that it was quite hard to make out anything below. “I see now that the soldier agreed I had won that bet in order to convince me of his honesty,” Abdullah said ruefully. “I think he always meant to steal the genie and probably the carpet, too.”

  Sophie was interested. Her grip on his arm relaxed slightly, to Abdullah’s great relief. “You can’t blame that genie for hating everyone,” she said. “Think how you felt shut in that dungeon.”

  “But the soldier—” said Abdullah.

  “Is another matter!” Sophie declared. “Just wait till I get my hands on him! I can’t abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across! But to get back to this genie you say you had, it looks as if the djinn meant you to have it. Do you think it was part of his scheme to have disappointed lovers help him get the better of his brother?”

  “I believe so,” said Abdullah.

  “Then, when we get to the cloud castle, if that’s where we’re going,” Sophie said, “we might be able to count on other disappointed lovers arriving to help.”

  “Maybe,” Abdullah said cautiously. “But I recollect, most curious of cats, that you were fleeing to the bushes while the djinn spoke, and the djinn expected only myself.”

  Nevertheless, he looked upward. It was growing chilly now, and the stars seemed uncomfortably close. There was a sort of silveriness to the dark blue of the sky which suggested moonlight trying to break through from somewhere. It was very beautiful. Abdullah’s heart swelled with the thought that he might be, at last, on the way to rescue Flower-in-the-Night.

  Unfortunately Sophie looked up, too. Her grip on his arm tightened. “Talk,” she said. “I’m terrified.”

  “Then you must talk, too, courageous caster of spells,” said Abdullah. “Close your eyes and tell me of the Prince of Ochinstan, to whom Flower-in-the-Night was betrothed.”

  “I don’t think she could have been,” Sophie said, almost babbling. She was truly terrified. “The King’s son is only a baby. Of course, there’s the King’s brother, Prince Justin, but he was supposed to be marrying Princess Beatrice of Strangia—except that she refused to hear of it and ran away. Do you think the djinn’s got her? I think your Sultan was just after some of the weapons our wizards have been making here—and he wouldn’t have got them. They don’t let the mercenaries take them south when they go. In fact, Howl says they shouldn’t even send mercenaries. Howl…” Her voice faded. Her hands on Abdullah’s arm shook. “Talk!” she croaked.

  It was getting hard to breathe. “I barely can, strong-handed Sultana,” Abdullah gasped. “I think the air is thin here. Can you not make some witchly weaving that might help us to breathe?”

  “Probably not. You keep calling me a witch, but I’m really quite new to it,” Sophie protested. “You saw. When I was a cat, all I could do was get larger.” But she let go of Abdullah for a moment in order to make short, jerky gestures overhead. “Really, air!” she said. “This is disgraceful! You are going to have to let us breathe a bit better than this or we won’t last out. Gather around and let us breathe you!” She clutched Abdullah again. “Is that any better?”

  There really did seem to be more air now, though it was colder than ever. Abdullah was surprised, because Sophie’s method of casting a spell struck him as most unwitchlike—in fact, it was not much different from his own way of persuading the carpet to move—but he had to admit that it worked. “Yes. Many thanks, speaker of spells.”

  “Talk!” said Sophie.

  They were so high that the world below was out of sight. Abdullah had no trouble understanding Sophie’s terror. The carpet was sailing through dark emptiness, up and up, and Abdullah knew that if he had been alone, he might have been screaming. “You talk, mighty mistress of magics,” he quavered. “Tell me of this Wizard Howl of yours.”

  Sophie’s teeth chattered, but she said proudly, “He’s the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he’d only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he’s sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can’t pin him down to anything.”

  “Indeed?” asked Abdullah. “Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies.”

  “What do you mean, vices?” Sophie asked angrily. “I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he’s dead—ooh!”

  She ended in a moan as the carpet plunged upward into what had seemed to be a gauzy veil of cloud. Inside the cloud the gauziness proved to be flakes of ice, which peppered them in slivers and chunks and rounds like a hailstorm. They were both gasping as the carpet burst upward out of it. Then they both gasped again, in wonder.

  They were in a new country, which was bathed in moonlight— moonlight that had the golden tinge of a harvest moon to it. But when Abdullah spared an instant to look for the moon, he could not see it anywhere. The light seemed to come from the silver-blue sky itself, studded with great limpid golden stars. But he could only spare that one glance. The carpet had come out beside a hazy, transparent sea and was laboring alongside soft rollers breaking on cloudy rocks. Regardless of the fact that they could see through each wave as if it were gold-green silk, its water was wet and threatened to overwhelm the carpet. The air was warm. And the carpet, not to speak of their own clothes and hair, was loaded with piles of melting ice. Sophie and Abdullah, for the first few minutes, were entirely occupied in sweeping ice over the edges of the carpet into the translucent ocean, where it sank through into the sky beneath and vanished.

  When the carpet bobbed up lighter and they had a chance to look around, they gasped again. For here were the islands and
promontories and bays of dim gold that Abdullah had seen in the sunset, spreading out from beside them into the far silver distance, where they lay hushed and still and enchanted like a vista of Paradise itself. The pellucid waves broke on the cloud shore with only the faintest of whispers, which seemed to add to the silence.

  It seemed wrong to speak in such a place. Sophie nudged Abdullah and pointed. There, on the nearest cloudy headland, stood a castle, a mass of proud, soaring towers with dim silvery windows showing in them. It was made of cloud. As they looked, several of the taller towers streamed sideways and shredded out of existence, while others shrank and broadened. Under their eyes, it grew like a blot into a massive frowning fortress and then began to change again. But it was still there and still a castle, and it seemed to be the place where the carpet was taking them.

  The carpet was going at a swift walking pace, but gently, keeping to the shoreline as if it were not at all anxious to be seen. There were cloudy bushes beyond the waves, tinged red and silver like the aftermath of sunset. The carpet lurked in the cover of these, just as it had lurked behind trees in Kingsbury Plain, while it circled the bay to come to the promontory.