Diana Wynne Jones - Castle In The Air

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Castle in

the Air

Diana Wynne Jones

First published in Great Britain in 1990 by Methuen Children's

Books.

First published in the United States in 1991 by Greenwillow Books.

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval

system, without permission in writing from the Publisher, Greenwillow

Books, a division of William Morrow & Company, Inc., 105 Madison Avenue,

New York, NY 10016.

Printed in the United States of America

First American Edition 10 987654321

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jones, Diana Wynne.

Castle in the air / by Diana Wynne Jones, p. cm.

Summary: Having long indulged himself in daydreams more exciting than

his mundane life as a carpet merchant, Abdullah unexpectedly purchases a

magic carpet and his life changes dramatically as his daydreams come

true and dangerous adventures become daily fare.

ISBN 0-688-09686-7

[1. Fantasy.] I. Title. PZ7.J684Cau 1991 [Fie]-dc20 90-30266 CIP AC

iv Contents

1: In which Abdullah buys a carpet 1

2: In which Abdullah is mistaken for a young lady 11

3: In which Flower-in-the-Night discovers several important facts 19

4: Which concerns marriage and prophecy 28

5: Which tells how Flower-in-the-Night's

father wished to raise Abdullah above

all others in the land 39

6: Which shows how Abdullah went from the frying pan into the fire 48

7: Which introduces the genie 57

8: In which Abdullah's dreams continue to come true 65

9: In which Abdullah encounters an old soldier 72

10: Which tells of violence and bloodshed 79

11: In which a wild animal causes Abdullah to waste a wish 88

v 12: In which the law catches up with Abdullah and the soldier 96

105

13: In which Abdullah challenges Fate r

d 14: Which tells how the magic carpet reappears

15: In which the travelers arrive at Kingsbur/

16: In which strange things befallMidnight and Whippersnapper 232

17: In which Abdullah at last reaches the castle in the air 243

A18: Which is rather full of princesses w

19: In which a soldier, a cook, and a carpet seller all state their

price 263

20: In which a djinn's life is found and then hidden 275

21: In which the castle comes down to eartf1

vi Castle in

the Air

vii

In which

Abdullah buys

a carpet

Far to the south of the land of Ingary, in the Sultanates of Rashpuht, a

young carpet merchant called Abdullah lived in the city of Zanzib. As

merchants go, he was not rich. His father had been disappointed in him,

and when he died, he had only left Abdullah just enough money to buy and

stock a modest booth in the northwest corner of the Bazaar. The rest of

his father's money, and the large carpet emporium in the center of the

Bazaar, had all gone to the relatives of his father's first wife.

Abdullah had never been told why his father was disappointed in him. A

prophecy made at Abdullah's birth had something to do with it. But

Abdullah had never bothered to find out more. Instead, from a very early

age, he had simply made up daydreams about it. In his daydreams, he was

really the long-lost son of a great prince, which meant, of course, that

his father was not really his father. It was a complete castle in the

air, and Abdullah knew it was. Everyone told him he inherited his

father's looks. When he looked in a mirror, he saw a decidedly handsome

young man, in a thin, hawk- faced way, and knew he looked very like the

portrait of his father as a young man, always allowing for the fact that

his father wore a

flourishing mustache, whereas Abdullah was still scraping together the

six hairs on his upper lip and hoping they would multiply soon.

Unfortunately, as everyone also agreed, Abdullah had inherited his

character from his mother-his father's second wife-who had been a dreamy

and timorous woman and a great disappointment to everyone. This did not

bother Abdullah particularly. The life of a carpet merchant holds few

opportunities for bravery, and he was, on the whole, content with it.

The booth he had bought, though small, turned out to be rather well

placed. It was not far from the West Quarter, where the rich people

lived in their big houses surrounded by beautiful gardens. Better still,

it was the first part of the Bazaar the carpet makers came to when they

came into Zanzib from the desert to the north. Both the rich people and

the carpet makers were usually seeking the bigger shops in the center of

the Bazaar, but a surprisingly large number of them were ready to pause

at the booth of a young carpet merchant when that young merchant rushed

out into their paths and offered them bargains and discounts with most

profuse politeness.

In this way, Abdullah was quite often able to buy best-quality carpets

before anyone else saw them, and sell them at a profit, too. In between

buying and selling he could sit in his booth and continue with his

daydream, which suited him very well. In fact, almost the only trouble

in his life came from his father's first wife's relations, who would

keep visiting him once a month in order to point out his failings.

"But you're not saving any of your profits!" cried Abdullah's father's

first wife's brother's son, Hakim (whom Abdullah detested), one fateful

day.

Abdullah explained that when he made a profit, his custom was to use

that money to buy a better carpet. Thus, although all his money was

bound up in his stock, it was getting to be better and better stock. He

had enough to live on. And as he told his father's relatives, he had no

need of more since he was not married.

"Well, you should be married!" cried Abdullah's father's first wife's

sister, Fatima (whom Abdullah detested even more than Hakim). "I've said

it once, and I'll say it again-a young man like

you should have at least two wives by now!" And not content with simply

saying so, Fatima declared that this time she was going to look out for

some wives for him-an offer which made Abdullah shake in his shoes.

"And the more valuable your stock gets, the more likely you are to be

robbed, or the more you'll lose if your booth catches fire. Have you

thought of that?" nagged Abdullah's father's first wife's uncle's son,

Assif (a man whom Abdullah hated more than the first two put together).

He assured Assif that he always slept in the booth and was very careful

of the lamps. At that all three of his father's first wife's relatives

shook their heads, rut-tutted, and went away. This usually meant they

would leave him in peace for another month. Abdullah sighed with relief

and plunged straight back into his daydream.

The daydream was enormously detailed by now. In it, Abdullah was the son

of a mighty prince who lived so far to the east that his country was

unknown in Zanzib. But Abdullah had been kidnapped at the age of two by

a villainous bandit called Kabul Aqba. Kabul Aqba had a hooked nose like

the beak of a vulture and wore a gold ring clipped into one of his

nostrils. He carried a pistol with a silver- mounted stock with which he

menaced Abdullah, and there was a bloodstone in his turban which seemed

to give him more than human power. Abdullah was so frightened that he

ran away into the desert, where he was found by the man he called his

father now. The daydream took no account of the fact that Abdullah's

father had never ventured into the desert in his life; indeed, he had

often said that anyone who ventured beyond Zanzib must be mad.

Nevertheless, Abdullah could picture every nightmare inch of the dry,

thirsty, footsore journey he had made before the good carpet merchant

found him. Likewise, he could picture in great detail the palace he had

been kidnapped from, with its pillared throne room floored in green

porphyry, its women's quarters, and its kitchens, all of the utmost

richness. There were seven domes on its roof, each one covered with

beaten gold.

Lately, however, the daydream had been concentrating on the princess to

whom Abdullah had been betrothed at his birth. She

was as highborn as Abdullah and had grown up in his absence into a great

beauty with perfect features and huge misty dark eyes. She lived in a

palace as rich as Abdullah's own. You approached it along an avenue

lined with angelic statues and entered by way of seven marble courts,

each with a fountain in the middle more precious than the last, starting

with one made of chrysolite and ending with one of platinum studded with

emeralds.

But that day Abdullah found he was not quite satisfied with this

arrangement. It was a feeling he often had after a visit from his

father's first wife's relations. It occurred to him that a good palace

ought to have magnificent gardens. Abdullah loved gardens, though he

knew very little about them. Most of his experience had come from the

public parks of Zanzib-where the turf was somewhat trampled and the

flowers few-in which he sometimes spent his lunch hour when he could

afford to pay one-eyed Jamal to watch his booth. Jamal kept the fried

food stall next door and would, for a coin or so, tie his dog to the

front of Abdullah's booth. Abdullah was well aware that this did not

really qualify him to invent a proper garden, but since anything was

better than thinking of two wives chosen for him by Fatima, he lost

himself in waving fronds and scented walkways in the gardens of his

princess.

Or nearly. Before Abdullah was fairly started, he was interrupted by a

tall, dirty man with a dingy-looking carpet in his arms.

"You buy carpets for selling, son of a great house?" this stranger

asked, bowing briefly.

For someone trying to sell a carpet in Zanzib, where buyers and sellers

always spoke to one another in the most formal and flowery way, this

man's manner was shockingly abrupt. Abdullah was annoyed anyway because

his dream garden was falling to pieces at this interruption from real

life. He answered curtly. "That is so, O king of the desert. You wish to

trade with this miserable merchant?"

"Not trade-sell, O master of a stack of mats," the stranger corrected him.

Mats! thought Abdullah. This was an insult. One of the carpets on

display in front of Abdullah's booth was a rare floral tufted one from

Ingary-or Ochinstan, as that land was called in Zanzib-and

there were at least two inside, from Inhico and Farqtan, which the

Sultan himself would not have disdained for one of the smaller rooms of

his palace. But of course, Abdullah could not say this. The manners of

Zanzib did not let you praise yourself. Instead, he bowed a coldly

shallow bow. "It is possible that my low and squalid establishment might

provide that which you seek, O pearl of wanderers," he said, and cast

his eye critically over the stranger's dirty desert robe, the corroded

stud in the side of the man's nose, and his tattered headcloth as he

said it.

"It is worse than squalid, mighty seller of floor coverings," the

stranger agreed. He flapped one end of his dingy carpet toward Jamal,

who was frying squid just then in clouds of blue, fishy smoke. "Does not

the honorable activity of your neighbor penetrate your wares," he asked,

"even to a lasting aroma of octopus?"

Abdullah seethed with such rage inside that he was forced to rub his

hands together slavishly to hide it. People were not supposed to mention

this sort of thing. And a slight smell of squid might even improve that

thing the stranger wanted to sell, he thought, eyeing the drab and

threadbare rug in the man's arms. "Your humble servant takes care to

fumigate the interior of his booth with lavish perfumes, O prince of

wisdom," he said. "Perhaps the heroic sensitivity of the prince's nose

will nevertheless allow him to show this beggarly trader his merchandise?"

"Of course, it does, O lily among mackerel," the stranger retorted. "Why

else should I stand here?"

Abdullah reluctantly parted the curtains and ushered the man inside his

booth. There he turned up the lamp which hung from the center pole but,

upon sniffing, decided that he was not going to waste incense on this

person. The interior smelled quite strongly enough of yesterday's

scents. "What magnificence have you to unroll before my unworthy eyes?"

he asked dubiously.

"This, buyer of bargains!" the man said, and with a deft thrust of one

arm, he caused the carpet to unroll across the floor.

Abdullah could do this, too. A carpet merchant learned these things. He

was not impressed. He stuck his hands in his sleeves in a primly servile

attitude and surveyed the merchandise. The carpet

was not large. Unrolled, it was even dingier than he had thought-

although the pattern was unusual, or it would have been if most of it

had not been worn away. What was left was dirty, and its edges were frayed.

"Alas, this poor salesman can only stretch to three copper coins for

this most ornamental of rugs," he observed. "It is the limit of my

slender purse. Times are hard, O captain of many camels. Is the price

acceptable in any way?"

"I'll take FIVE HUNDRED," said the stranger.

"What?" said Abdullah.

"GOLD coins," added the stranger.

"The king of all desert bandits is surely pleased to jest?" said

Abdullah. "Or maybe, having found my small booth lacking in anything but

the smell of frying squid, he wishes to leave and try a richer merchant?"

"Not particularly," said the stranger. "Although I will leave if you are

not interested, O neighbor of kippers. It is, of course, a magic carpet."

Abdullah had heard that one before. He bowed over his tucked- up hands.

"Many and various are the virtues said to reside in carpets," he agreed.

"Which one does the poet of the sands claim for this? Does it welcome a

man home to his tent? Does it bring peace to the hearth? Or maybe," he

said, poking the frayed edge suggestively with one toe, "it is said

never to wear out?"

"It flies," said the stranger. "It flies wherever the owner commands, O

smallest of small minds."

Abdullah looked up into the man's somber face, where the desert had

entrenched deep lines down each cheek. A sneer made those lines deeper

still. Abdullah found he disliked this person almost as much as he

disliked his father's first wife's uncle's son. "You must convince this

unbeliever," he said. "If the carpet can be put through its paces, O

monarch of mendacity, then some bargain might be struck."

"Willingly," said the tall man, and stepped upon the carpet.

At this moment one of the regular upsets happened at the fried food

stall next door. Probably some street boys had tried to steal

some squid. At any rate, Jamal's dog burst out barking; various people,

Jamal included, began yelling, and both sounds were nearly drowned by

the clash of saucepans and the hissing of hot fat.

Cheating was a way of life in Zanzib. Abdullah did not allow his

attention to be distracted for one instant from the stranger and his

carpet. It was quite possible the man had bribed Jamal to cause a

distraction. He had mentioned Jamal rather often, as if Jamal were on

his mind. Abdullah kept his eyes sternly on the tall figure of the man

and particularly on the dirty feet planted on the carpet. But he spared

a corner of one eye for the man's face, and he saw the man's lips move.

His alert ears even caught the words too feet upward despite the din

from next door. And he looked even more carefully when the carpet rose

smoothly from the floor and hovered about level with Abdullah's knees,

so that the stranger's tattered headgear was not quite brushing the roof

of the booth. Abdullah looked for rods underneath. He searched for wires

that might have been deftly hooked to the roof. He took hold of the lamp

and tipped it about, so that its light played both over and under the

carpet.

The stranger stood with his arms folded and the sneer entrenched on his

face while Abdullah performed these tests. "See?" he said. "Is the most

desperate of doubters now convinced? Am I standing in the air, or am I

not?" He had to shout. The noise was still deafening from next door.

Abdullah was forced to admit that the carpet did appear to be up in the

air without any means of support that he could find. "Very nearly," he

shouted back. "The next part of the demonstration is for you to dismount

and for me to ride that carpet."

The man frowned. "Why so? What have your other senses to add to the

evidence of your eyes, O dragon of dubiety?"

"It could be a one-man carpet," Abdullah bawled, "as some dogs are."

Jamal's dog was still bellowing away outside, so it was natural to think

of this. Jamal's dog bit anyone who touched it except Jamal.

The stranger sighed. "Down," he said, and the carpet sank gently to the

floor. The stranger stepped off and bowed Abdullah toward it. "It is

yours to test, O sheikh of shrewdness."

With considerable excitement, Abdullah stepped onto the carpet. "Go up

two feet," he said to it-or, rather, yelled. It sounded as if the

constables of the City Watch had arrived at Jamal's stall now. They were

clashing weapons and bawling to be told what had happened.

And the carpet obeyed Abdullah. It rose two feet in a smooth surge which

left Abdullah's stomach behind it. He sat down rather hastily. The

carpet was perfectly comfortable to sit on. It felt like a very tight

hammock. "This woefully sluggish intellect is becoming convinced," he

confessed to the stranger. "What was your price again, O paragon of

generosity? Two hundred silver?"

"Five hundred GOLD," said the stranger. "Tell the carpet to descend, and

we will discuss the matter."

Abdullah told the carpet, "Down, and land on the floor," and it did so,

thus removing a slight nagging doubt in Abdullah's mind that the

stranger had said something extra when Abdullah first stepped on it

which had been drowned in the din from next door. He bounced to his

feet, and the bargaining commenced. "The utmost of my purse is one

hundred and fifty gold," he explained, "and that is when I shake it out

and feel all around the seams."

"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.

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."

"I mean, out into the town, to see all the people," Abdullah explained.

"Well, no, not yet," she admitted. As if that bothered her a little, she

twirled away from him and went to sit on the edge of the fountain.

Turning to look up at him, she said, "My father tells me I might be able

to go out and see the town sometimes after I'm married-if my husband

allows me to-but it won't be this town. My father's arranging for me to

marry a prince from Ochinstan. Until then I have to stay inside these

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CastleintheAirDianaWynneJonesiiiiiiCopyright©1990byDianaWynneJonesFirstpublishedinGreatBritainin1990byMethuenChildren'sBooks.FirstpublishedintheUnitedStatesin1991byGreenwillowBooks.Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedorutilizedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,includingphotoc...

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