It was a handsome narrow house with diamond-paned windows and interwoven magic signs painted on its old irregular walls. There were tall spires of yellow flame burning in brass stands on either side of the front door. Abdullah seized the knocker, which was a leering face with a ring in its mouth, and boldly knocked.
The door was opened by a manservant with a long, dour face. “I’m afraid the wizard is extremely busy, sir,” he said. “He is receiving no clients until further notice.” And he started to shut the door.
“No wait, faithful footman and loveliest of lackeys!” Abdullah protested. “What I have to say concerns no less than a threat to the King’s daughter!”
“The wizard knows all about that, sir,” said the man, and went on shutting the door.
Abdullah deftly put his foot in the space. “You must hear me, most sapient servant,” he began. “I come—”
Behind the manservant a young woman’s voice said, “Just a moment, Manfred, I know this is important.” The door swung open again.
Abdullah gaped as the servant vanished from the doorway and reappeared some way back in the hall inside. His place at the door was taken by an extremely lovely young woman with dark curls and a vivid face. Abdullah saw enough of her in one glance to realize that in her foreign northern way, she was as beautiful as Flower-in-the-Night, but after that he felt bound to look modestly away from her. She was very obviously going to have a baby. Ladies in Zanzib did not show themselves in this interesting condition. Abdullah scarcely knew where to look.
“I’m the wizard’s wife, Lettie Suliman,” this young woman said. “What did you come about?”
Abdullah bowed. It helped to keep his eyes on the doorstep. “O fruitful moon of lovely Kingsbury,” he said, “know that I am Abdullah, son of Abdullah, carpet merchant from distant Zanzib, with news that your husband will wish to hear. Tell him, O splendor of a sorcerous house, that this morning I spoke with the mighty djinn Hasruel concerning the King’s most precious daughter.”
Lettie Suliman was clearly not at all used to the manners of Zanzib. “Good heavens!” she said. “I mean, how polite! And you’re speaking the exact truth, aren’t you? I think you ought to talk to Ben at once. Please come in.”
She backed away from the doorway to give Abdullah room to enter. Abdullah, still with his eyes modestly lowered, stepped forward into the house. As soon as he did, something landed on his back. Then it took off again with a heavy rip of claws and went sailing over his head to land with a thump on Lettie’s prominent front. A noise like a metal pulley filled the air.
“Midnight!” Abdullah said crossly, staggering forward.
“Sophie!” screamed Lettie, staggering backward with the cat in her arms. “Oh, Sophie, I’ve been worried sick! Manfred, get Ben at once. I don’t care what he’s doing. This is urgent!”
Chapter 16: In which strange things befall Midnight and Whippersnapper
There was a great deal of confusion and rushing about. Two other servants appeared, followed by first one and then a second young man in long blue gowns, who seemed to be the wizard’s apprentices. All these people ran about, while Lettie ran back and forth in the hall with Midnight in her arms, screaming orders. In the midst of it all, Abdullah found Manfred showing him to a seat and solemnly giving him a glass of wine. Since this seemed what he was expected to do, Abdullah sat down and sipped the wine, rather bemused by the confusion.
Just as he was thinking it was going to go on forever, it all stopped. A tall, commanding man in a black robe had appeared from somewhere. “What on earth is going on?” said this man.
Since this summed up Abdullah’s feelings entirely, he found himself rather taking to this man. He had faded red hair and a tired, craggy face. The black robe made Abdullah certain that this must be Wizard Suliman; he would have looked like a wizard whatever he was wearing. Abdullah rose from his chair and bowed. The wizard shot him a look of craggy mystification and turned to Lettie.
“He’s from Zanzib, Ben,” said Lettie, “and he knows something about the threat to the Princess. And he brought Sophie with him. She’s a cat! Look! Ben, you’ve got to change her back at once!”
Lettie was one of those ladies who look lovelier the more distraught they get. Abdullah was not surprised when Wizard Suliman took her gently by the elbows and said, “Yes, of course, my love,” and followed that by kissing her forehead. It made Abdullah wonder miserably whether he would ever have a chance to kiss Flower-in-the-Night like that, or to add, as the wizard added, “Calm down—remember the baby.” After this the wizard said over his shoulder, “And can’t someone shut the front door? Half Kingsbury must know what’s happened by now.”
This endeared the wizard to Abdullah more than ever. The one thing that had prevented him getting up and shutting the door was a fear that it might be the custom here to leave your front door open in a crisis. He bowed again and found the wizard swinging around to face him.
“And what has happened, young man?” asked the wizard. “How did you know this cat was my wife’s sister?”
Abdullah was somewhat taken aback by this question. He explained—several times—that he had had no idea Midnight was human, let alone that she was the Royal Wizard’s sister-in-law, but he was not at all sure that anyone listened. They all seemed so glad to see Midnight that they simply assumed that Abdullah had brought her to the house out of pure friendship. Far from demanding a large fee, Wizard Suliman seemed to think that he owed Abdullah something, and when Abdullah protested that this was not so, he said, “Well, come along and see her changed back, anyway.”
He said this in such a friendly and trusting way that Abdullah warmed to him even more and let himself be swept along with everyone else to a large room that seemed to be at the back of the house— except that Abdullah had a feeling that it was somehow somewhere else entirely. The floor and the walls sloped in a way that was not usual.
Abdullah had never seen any working wizardry before. He gazed around with interest, for the room was crowded with intricate magical devices. Nearest to him were filigree shapes with delicate smokes wreathing about them. Beside that, large and peculiar candles stood inside complicated signs, and beyond those were strange images made of wet clay. Farther off he saw a fountain of five jets that fell in odd geometric patterns and that half hid many much odder things, crowded into the distance beyond.
“No room to work in here,” Wizard Suliman said, sweeping through. “These should hold by themselves while we set up in the next room. Hurry, all of you.”
Everyone whirled on into a smaller room beyond, which was empty apart from some round mirrors hanging on the walls. Here Lettie set Midnight carefully down on a blue-green stone in the middle, where she sat seriously washing the inside of her front legs and looking totally unconcerned, while everyone else, including Lettie and the servants, worked away feverishly at building a sort of tent around her out of long silver rods.
Abdullah stood prudently against the wall, watching. By now he was rather regretting assuring the wizard that he owed him nothing. He should have taken the opportunity to ask how to reach the castle in the sky. But he reckoned that since nobody seemed to have listened to him then, it was better to wait until things calmed down. Meanwhile, the silver rods grew into a pattern of skeletal silver stars, and Abdullah watched the bustle, somewhat confused at the way the scene was reflected in all the mirrors, small and busy and bulging. The mirrors bent as oddly as the walls and floors did.