Castle in the Air Page 17

  As it went, there were new vistas of golden seas, where far-off smoky shapes moved that could have been ships or may have been cloudy creatures on business of their own. Still in utter, whispering silence, the carpet crept out onto the headland, where there were no more bushes. Here it slunk close to the cloudy ground, much as it had followed the shapes of the roofs in Kingsbury. Abdullah did not blame it. Ahead of them, the castle was changing again, stretching out until it had become a mighty pavilion. As the carpet entered the long avenue leading to its gates, domes were rising and bulging, and it had protruded a dim gold minaret as if it were watching them coming.

  The avenue was lined with cloudy shapes, which also seemed to watch them coming. The shapes grew out of the cloud-ground in the way that one often sees a tuft of cloud curl upward out of the main mass. But unlike the castle, they did not change shape. Each one ramped proudly upward, somewhat in the shape of a sea horse or the knights in a game of chess, except that their faces were blanker and flatter than the faces of horses and surrounded by curling tendrils that were neither cloud nor hair.

  Sophie looked at each one as they passed it with increasing disfavor. “I don’t think much of his taste in statues,” she said.

  “Oh, hush, most outspoken lady!” Abdullah whispered. “These are no statues, but the two hundred attendant angels spoken of by the djinn!”

  The sound of their voices attracted the attention of the nearest cloudy shape. It stirred mistily, opened a pair of immense moonstone eyes, and bent to survey the carpet as it slunk past it.

  “Don’t you dare try to stop us!” Sophie said to it. “We’re only coming to get my baby.”

  The huge eyes blinked. Evidently the angel was not used to being spoken to so sharply. Cloudy white wings began to spread from its sides.

  Hastily Abdullah stood up on the carpet and bowed. “Greetings, most noble messenger of the heavens,” he said. “What the lady says so bluntly is the truth. Pray forgive her. She is from the north. But she, like me, comes in peace. The djinns are minding her child, and we do but come to collect him and render them our most humble and devout thanks.”

  This seemed to placate the angel. Its wings melted back into its cloudy sides, and though its strange head turned to watch them as the carpet slunk on, it did not try to stop them. But by now the angel across the way had its eyes open, too, and the two next were turned to stare as well. Abdullah did not dare sit down again. He braced his feet for balance and bowed to each pair of angels as they came to it. This was not easy to do. The carpet knew how dangerous the angels could be as well as Abdullah did, and it was moving faster and faster.

  Even Sophie realized that a little politeness would help. She nodded to each angel as they whipped past. “Evening,” she said. “Lovely sunset today. Evening.” She had not time for more because the carpet was fairly scuttling up the last stretch of avenue. When it reached the castle gates, which were shut, it dived through like a rat up a drainpipe. Abdullah and Sophie were suffused with foggy damp and then out into calm goldish light. They found they were in a garden. Here the carpet fell to the floor, limp as a dishrag, where it stayed. It had little shivers running through the length of it, as a carpet might that was shaking with fear, or panting with effort, or both.

  Since the ground in the garden was solid and did not seem to be made of cloud, Sophie and Abdullah cautiously stepped onto it. It was firm turf, growing silver-green grass. In the distance, among formal hedges, a marble fountain played. Sophie looked at this, and looked around, and began to frown.

  Abdullah stooped and considerately rolled the carpet up, patting it and speaking soothingly. “Bravely done, most daring of damasks,” he told it. “There, there. Never fear. I will not allow any djinn, however mighty, to harm so much as a thread of your treasured fabric or a fringe from your border.”

  “You sound like that soldier making a fuss of Morgan when he was Whippersnapper,” Sophie said. “The castle’s over there.”

  They set off toward it, Sophie staring alertly around and uttering one or two snorts, Abdullah with the carpet tenderly over his shoulder. He patted it from time to time and felt the quivers die out of it as they went. They walked for some time, for the garden, although it was not made of cloud, changed and enlarged around them. The hedges became artistic banks of pale pink flowers, and the fountain, which they could see clearly in the distance all the time, now appeared to be crystal or possibly chrysolite. A few steps more, and everything was in jeweled pots, and frondy, with creepers trained up lacquered pillars. Sophie’s snorts became louder. The fountain, as far as they could tell, was of silver inset with sapphires.

  “That djinn has taken liberties with a person’s castle,” Sophie said. “Unless I’m entirely turned around, this used to be our bathroom.”

  Abdullah felt his face heat up. Sophie’s bathroom or not, these were the gardens out of his daydreams. Hasruel was mocking him, as he had mocked Abdullah all along. When the fountain ahead turned to gold, glinting wine dark with rubies, Abdullah became as annoyed as Sophie was.

  “This is not the way a garden should be, even if we disregard the confusing changes,” he said angrily. “A garden should be natural-seeming, with wild sections, including a large area of bluebells.”

  “Quite right,” said Sophie. “Look at that fountain now! What a way to treat a bathroom!”

  The fountain was platinum, with emeralds. “Ridiculously flashy!” said Abdullah. “When I design my garden—”

  He was interrupted by a child’s screaming. Both of them began to run.

  Chapter 18

  Which is rather full of princesses.

  The child’s screams rose. There was no doubt about the direction. As Sophie and Abdullah ran that way, along a pillared cloister, Sophie panted, “It’s not Morgan; it’s an older child!”

  Abdullah thought she was right. He could hear words in the screams, although he could not pick out what they were. And surely Morgan, even howling his loudest, did not possess big enough lungs to make this kind of noise. After getting almost too loud to bear, the screams became grating sobs. Those sank to a steady, nagging “Wah-wah-wah!” and just as that sound became truly intolerable, the child raised his or her voice into hysterical screams again.

  Sophie and Abdullah followed the noise to the end of the cloister and out into a huge cloudy hall. There they stopped prudently behind a pillar, and Sophie said, “Our main room. They must have blown it up like a balloon!”

  It was a very big hall. The screaming child was in the middle of it. She was about four years old, with fair curls and wearing a white nightdress. Her face was red, her mouth was a black square, and she was alternately throwing herself down on the green porphyry floor and standing up in order to throw herself down again. If ever there was a child in a temper, it was this one. The echoes in the huge hall yelled with it.

  “It’s Princess Valeria,” Sophie murmured to Abdullah. “I thought it might be.”

  Hovering over the howling princess was the huge dark shape of Hasruel. Another djinn, much smaller and paler, was dodging about behind him. “Do something!” this small djinn shouted. Only the fact that he had a voice like silver trumpets made him audible. “She’s driving me insane!”

  Hasruel bent his great visage down to Valeria’s screaming face. “Little princess,” he boomingly cooed, “stop crying. You will not be hurt.”

  Princess Valeria’s answer was first to stand up and scream in Hasruel’s face, then to throw herself flat on the floor and roll and kick there. “Wah-wah-wah!” she vociferated. “I want home! I want my dad! I want my nurse! I want my Uncle Ju-ustin! WaaaAH!”

  “Little princess!” Hasruel cooed desperately.

  “Don’t just coo at her!” trumpeted the other djinn, who was clearly Dalzel. “Work some magic! Sweet dreams, a spell of silence, a thousand teddies, a ton of toffee! Anything!”

  Hasruel turned around on his brother. His spread wings fanned agitated gales, which flapped Valeria’s hair and flutte
red her nightdress. Sophie and Abdullah had to cling to the pillar, or the force of the wind would have blown them backward. But it made no difference to Princess Valeria’s tantrum. If anything, she screamed harder.

  “I have tried all that, brother of mine!” Hasruel boomed.

  Princess Valeria was now producing steady yells of “MOTHER! MOTHER! THEY’RE BEING HORRID TO ME!”

  Hasruel had to raise his voice to a perfect thunder. “Don’t you know,” he thundered, “that there is almost no magic that will stop a child in this kind of temper?”

  Dalzel clapped his pale hands across his ears—pointed ears, with a look of fungus to them. “Well, I can’t stand it!” he shrilled. “Put her to sleep for a hundred years!”

  Hasruel nodded. He turned back to Princess Valeria as she screamed and thrashed upon the floor and spread his huge hand above her.

  “Oh, dear!” said Sophie to Abdullah. “Do something!”

  Since Abdullah had no idea what to do, and since he privately felt that anything that stopped this horrible noise was a good idea, he did nothing but edge uncertainly away from the pillar. And fortunately, before Hasruel’s magic had any noticeable effect on Princess Valeria, a crowd of other people arrived. A loud, rather rasping voice cut through the din.

  “What is all this noise about?”

  Both djinns started backward. The new arrivals were all female, and they all looked extremely displeased; but when you had said that, you seemed to have said the only two things they had in common. They stood in a row, thirty or so of them, glaring accusingly at the two djinns, and they were tall, short, stout, skinny, young and old, and of every color the human race produces. Abdullah’s eyes scudded along the row in amazement. These must be the kidnapped princesses. That was the third thing they had in common. They ranged from a tiny, frail, yellow princess nearest to him, to an elderly, bent princess in the mid-distance. And they were wearing every possible kind of clothing, from a ball dress to tweeds.

  The one who had called out was a solidly built middle-sized princess standing slightly in front of the rest. She was wearing riding clothes. Her face, besides being tanned and a little lined from outdoor activity, was downright and sensible. She looked at the two djinns with utter contempt. “Of all the ridiculous things!” she said. “Two great powerful creatures like you, and you can’t even stop a child crying!” And she stepped up to Valeria and gave her a sharp slap on her thrashing behind. “Shut up!”

  It worked. Valeria had never been slapped in her life before. She rolled over and sat up as if she had been shot. She stared at the downright princess out of astonished, swollen eyes. “You hit me!”

  “And I shall hit you again if you ask for it,” said the downright princess.

  “I shall scream,” said Valeria. Her mouth went square again. She drew a deep breath.

  “No, you won’t,” said the downright princess. She picked Valeria up and bundled her briskly into the arms of the two princesses behind her. They, and several more, closed around Valeria in a huddle, making soothing noises. From the midst of the huddle Valeria began screaming again, but in a way that was not quite convinced. The downright princess put her hands on her hips and turned contemptuously to the djinns.

  “See?” she said. “All you need is a bit of firmness and some kindness, but neither of you can be expected to understand that!”

  Dalzel stepped toward her. Now that he was not so anguished, Abdullah saw with surprise that Dalzel was beautiful. Apart from his fungoid ears and taloned feet, he could have been a tall, angelic man. Golden curls grew on his head, and his wings, though small and stunted-looking, were golden, too. His very red mouth spread into a sweet smile. Altogether he had an unearthly beauty that matched the strange cloud kingdom where he lived. “Pray take the child away,” he said, “and comfort her, O Princess Beatrice, most excellent of my wives.”

  Downright Princess Beatrice was gesturing to the other princesses to take Valeria away anyway, but she turned back sharply at this. “I’ve told you, my lad,” she said, “that none of us is any wife of yours. You can call us that until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t make the slightest difference. We are not your wives, and we never will be!”

  “Exactly!” said most of the other princesses, in a firm but ragged chorus. All of them, except for one, turned and swept away, taking the sobbing Princess Valeria with them.

  Sophie’s face was lit with a delighted smile. She whispered, “It looks as if the princesses are holding their own!”

  Abdullah could not attend to her. The remaining princess was Flower-in-the-Night. She was, as always, twice as beautiful as he remembered her, looking very sweet and grave, with her great dark eyes fixed seriously on Dalzel. She bowed politely. Abdullah’s senses sang at the sight of her. The cloudy pillars around him seemed to sway in and out of existence. His heart pounded for joy. She was safe! She was here! She was speaking to Dalzel.

  “Forgive me, great djinn, if I remain to ask you a question,” she said, and her voice, even more than Abdullah remembered it, was melodious and merry as a cool fountain.

  To Abdullah’s outrage, Dalzel reacted with what seemed to be horror. “Oh, not you again!” he trumpeted, at which Hasruel, standing like a dark column in the background, folded his arms and grinned maliciously.

  “Yes, it is I, stern stealer of the daughters of sultans,” Flower-in-the-Night said with her head bowed politely. “I am here merely to ask what thing it was which started the child crying.”

  “How should I know?” Dalzel demanded. “You’re always asking me questions I can’t answer! Why are you asking this one?”

  “Because,” Flower-in-the-Night answered, “O robber of the offspring of rulers, the easiest way to calm the child is to deal with the cause of her temper. This I know from my own childhood, for I was much given to tantrums myself.”

  Surely not! Abdullah thought. She is lying for a purpose. No nature as sweet as hers could ever have screamed for anything! Yet, as he was outraged to see, Dalzel had no difficulty believing this.

  “I’ll bet you were!” Dalzel said.

  “So what was the cause, bereaver of the brave?” Flower-in-the-Night persisted. “Was it that she wishes to be back in her own palace or to have her own particular doll, or was she simply frightened by your face or—”

  “I’m not sending her back if that’s what you’re aiming for,” Dalzel interrupted. “She’s one of my wives now.”

  “Then I adjure you to find out what set her off screaming, raptor of the righteous,” Flower-in-the-Night said politely, “for without that knowledge, even thirty princesses may not silence her.” Indeed, Princess Valeria’s voice was rising again in the distance—“wah-wah-WAH!”—as she spoke. “I speak from experience,” Flower-in-the-Night observed. “I once screamed night and day, for a whole week, until my voice was gone, because I had grown out of my favorite shoes.”

  Abdullah could see Flower-in-the-Night was telling the exact truth. He tried to believe it, but try as he might, he just could not imagine his lovely Flower-in-the-Night lying on the floor, kicking and screaming.

  Dalzel again had no difficulty at all. He shuddered and turned angrily to Hasruel. “Think, can’t you? You brought her in. You must have noticed what set her off.”

  Hasruel’s great brown visage crumpled helplessly. “Brother mine, I brought her in through the kitchen, for she was silent and white with fear, and I thought maybe a sweetmeat would make her happy. But she threw the sweetmeats at the cook’s dog and remained silent. Her cries only began, as you know, after I placed her among the other princesses, and her screams only when you had her brought—”

  Flower-in-the-Night raised a finger. “Ah!” she said.

  Both djinns turned to her.

  “I have it,” she said. “It must be the cook’s dog. It is often an animal with children. She is used to being given all she wants, and she wants the dog. Instruct your cook, king of kidnappers, to bring his animal to our quarters, and the noise wi
ll cease, this I promise you.”

  “Very well,” said Dalzel. “Do it!” he trumpeted at Hasruel.

  Flower-in-the-Night bowed. “I thank you,” she said, and turned and walked gracefully away.

  Sophie shook Abdullah’s arm. “Let’s follow her.”

  Abdullah did not move or reply. He stared after Flower-in-the-Night, hardly able to believe he was really seeing her and equally unable to believe that Dalzel did not fall at her feet and adore her. He had to admit that this was a relief, but all the same—

  “She’s yours, is she?” Sophie said after one look at his face. Abdullah nodded raptly. “Then you’ve got good taste,” said Sophie. “Now come on before they notice us!”