"Diana Wynne Jones - Castle In The Air (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

Though this confirmed Abdullah's suspicions of the stranger who had sold
him the carpet, it was not much help. "Maybe," he said, "you should be
more careful about whom you let your dog bite."

"Not I!" said Jamal. "I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to
hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so."

After breakfast Abdullah looked for his nightcap again. It was simply
not there. He tried thinking carefully back to the last time he truly
remembered wearing it. That was when he had lain down to sleep the
previous night, when he was thinking of taking the carpet to the Grand
Vizier. After that came the dream. He had found he was wearing the
nightcap then. He remembered taking it off to show Flower-in-the-Night
(what a lovely name!) that he was not bald. From then on, as far as he
could recall, he had carried the nightcap in his hand until the moment
when he had sat down beside her on the edge of the fountain. After that,
when he recounted the history of his kidnapping by Kabul Aqba, he had a
clear memory of waving both hands freely as he talked, and he knew that
the nightcap had not been in either one. Things did disappear like that
in dreams, he knew, but the evidence pointed, all the same, to his
having dropped it as he sat down. Was it possible he had left it lying
on the grass beside the fountain? In which case-

Abdullah stood stock-still in the center of the booth, staring into the
rays of sunlight, which, oddly enough, no longer seemed full of squalid
motes of dust and old incense. Instead, they were pure golden slices of
heaven itself.

"It was not a dreamV said Abdullah.

Somehow his depression was clean gone. Even breathing was easier.

"It was reall" he said.

18

He went to stand thoughtfully looking down at the magic carpet. That had
been in the dream, too. In which case-

"It follows that you transported me to some rich man's garden while I
slept," he said to it. "Perhaps I spoke and ordered you to do so in my
sleep. Very likely. I was thinking of gardens. You are even more
valuable than I realized!"

19

In which

Flower-in-the-Night