Wizard's Castle: Omnibus - Jones Diana Wynne. Страница 74

“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.

“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. “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 for myself!”

“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.”

The genie swirled moodily. “Bother the prophecy! I can’t go against that. 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 cuirassier,” he protested, “what will become of your scheme to earn your bounty? You cannot rob robbers with a kitten in your hat!”

“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!