Wizard's Castle: Omnibus - Jones Diana Wynne. Страница 55

“Then you must fetch out your other purse or even feel under your mattress,” the stranger rejoined. “For the limit of my generosity is four hundred and ninety-five gold, and I would not sell at all but for the most pressing need.”

“I might squeeze another forty-five gold from the sole of my left shoe,” Abdullah replied. “That I keep for emergencies, and it is my pitiful all.”

“Examine your right shoe,” the stranger answered. “Four-fifty.”

And so it went on. An hour later the stranger departed from the booth with 210 gold pieces, leaving Abdullah the delighted owner of what seemed to be a genuine—if threadbare—magic carpet. He was still mistrustful. He did not believe that anyone, even a desert wanderer with few needs, would part with a real flying carpet—albeit nearly worn out—for less than 400 gold pieces. It was too useful—better than a camel, because it did not need to eat—and a good camel cost at least 450 in gold.

There had to be a catch. And there was one trick Abdullah had heard of. It was usually worked with horses or dogs. A man would come and sell a trusting farmer or hunter a truly superb animal for a surprisingly small price, saying that it was all that stood between himself and starvation. The delighted farmer (or hunter) would put the horse in a stall (or the dog in a kennel) for the night. In the morning it would be gone, being trained to slip its halter (or collar) and return to its owner in the night. It seemed to Abdullah that a suitably obedient carpet could be trained to do the same. So, before he left his booth, he very carefully wrapped the magic carpet around one of the poles that supported the roof and bound it there, around and around, with a whole reel of twine, which he then tied to one of the iron stakes at the base of the wall.

“I think you’ll find it hard to escape from that,” he told it, and went out to discover what had been going on at the food stall.

The stall was quiet now, and tidy. Jamal was sitting on its counter, mournfully hugging his dog.

“What happened?” asked Abdullah.

“Some thieving boys spilled all my squid,” Jamal said. “My whole day’s stock down in the dirt, lost, gone!”

Abdullah was so pleased with his bargain that he gave Jamal two silver pieces to buy more squid. Jamal wept with gratitude and embraced Abdullah. His dog not only failed to bite Abdullah; it licked his hand. Abdullah smiled. Life was good. He went off whistling to find a good supper while the dog guarded his booth.

When the evening was staining the sky red behind the domes and minarets of Zanzib, Abdullah came back, still whistling, full of plans to sell the carpet to the Sultan himself for a very large price indeed. He found the carpet exactly where he had left it. Or would it be better to approach the Grand Vizier, he wondered while he was washing, and suggest that the Vizier might wish to make the Sultan a present of it? That way he could ask for even more money. At the thought of how valuable that made the carpet, the story of the horse trained to slip its halter began to nag at him again. As he got into his nightshirt, Abdullah began to visualize the carpet wriggling free. It was old and pliable. It was probably very well trained. It could certainly slither out from behind the twine. Even if it did not, he knew the idea would keep him awake all night.

In the end, he carefully cut the twine away and spread the carpet on top of the pile of his most valuable rugs, which he always used as a bed. Then he put on his nightcap—which was necessary, because the cold winds blew off the desert and filled the booth with drafts— spread his blanket over him, blew out his lamp, and slept.

Chapter 2: In which Abdullah is mistaken for a young lady

He woke to find himself lying on a bank , with the carpet still underneath him, in a garden more beautiful than any he had imagined.

Abdullah was convinced that this was a dream. Here was the garden he had been trying to imagine when the stranger so rudely interrupted him. Here the moon was nearly full and riding high above, casting light as white as paint on a hundred small fragrant flowers in the grass around him. Round yellow lamps hung in the trees, dispelling the dense black shadows from the moon. Abdullah thought this was a very pleasing idea. By the two lights, white and yellow, he could see an arcade of creepers supported on elegant pillars, beyond the lawn where he lay, and from somewhere behind that, hidden water was quietly trickling.

It was so cool and so heavenlike that Abdullah got up and went in search of the hidden water, wandering down the arcade, where starry blooms brushed his face, all white and hushed in the moonlight, and bell-like flowers breathed out the headiest and gentlest of scents. As one does in dreams, Abdullah fingered a great waxy lily here and detoured deliriously there into a dell of pale roses. He had never before had a dream that was anything like so beautiful.

The water, when he found it beyond some big fernlike bushes dripping dew, was a simple marble fountain in another lawn, lit by strings of lamps in the bushes, which made the rippling water into a marvel of gold and silver crescents. Abdullah wandered toward it raptly.

There was only one thing needed to complete his rapture, and as in all the best dreams, it was there. An extremely lovely girl came across the lawn to meet him, treading softly on the damp grass with bare feet. The gauzy garments floating around her showed her to be slender, but not thin, just like the princess from Abdullah’s daydream. When she was near Abdullah, he saw that her face was not quite a perfect oval as the face of his dream princess should have been, nor were her huge dark eyes at all misty. In fact, they examined his face keenly, with evident interest. Abdullah hastily adjusted his dream, for she was certainly very beautiful. And when she spoke, her voice was all he could have desired, being light and merry as the water in the fountain and the voice of a very definite person, too.

“Are you a new kind of servant?” she said.

People always did ask strange things in dreams, Abdullah thought. “No, masterpiece of my imagination,” he said. “Know that I am really the long-lost son of a distant prince.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then that may make a difference. Does that mean you’re a different kind of woman from me?”

Abdullah stared at the girl of his dreams in some perplexity. “I’m not a woman!” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You are wearing a dress.”

Abdullah looked down and discovered that, in the way of dreams, he was wearing his nightshirt. “This is just my strange foreign garb,” he said hastily. “My true country is far from here. I assure you that I am a man.”

“Oh, no,” she said decidedly. “You can’t be a man. You’re quite the wrong shape. Men are twice as thick as you all over, and their stomachs come out in a fat bit that’s called a belly. And they have gray hair all over their faces and nothing but shiny skin on their heads. You’ve got hair on your head like me and almost none on your face.” Then, as Abdullah put his hand rather indignantly to the six hairs on his upper lip, she asked, “Or have you got bare skin under your hat?”

“Certainly not,” said Abdullah, who was proud of his thick, wavy hair. He put his hand to his head and removed what turned out to be his nightcap. “Look,” he said.

“Ah,” she said. Her lovely face was puzzled. “You have hair that’s almost as nice as mine. I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do, either,” said Abdullah. “Could it be that you have not seen very many men?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Don’t be silly. I’ve only seen my father! But I’ve seen quite a lot of him, so I do know.”

“But don’t you ever go out at all?” Abdullah asked helplessly.

She laughed. “Yes, I’m out now. This is my night garden. My father had it made so that I wouldn’t ruin my looks going out in the sun.”