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.
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.