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

jecture, I am now forced to make my living by humble means. I sell
carpets in the Bazaar of Zanzib. Your father is clearly a very rich man.
This will not strike him as a fitting alliance."

Flower-in-the-Night's fingers drummed quite angrily. "You speak as if it
is my father who intends to marry you!" she said. "What is the matter? I
love you. Do you not love me?"

She looked into Abdullah's face as she said this. He looked back into
hers, into what seemed an eternity of big dark eyes. He found himself
saying, "Yes." Flower-in-the-Night smiled. Abdullah smiled. Several more
moonlit eternities went by.

"I shall come with you when you leave here," Flower-in-the- Night said.
"Since what you say about my father's attitude to you could well be
true, we must get married first and tell my father afterward. Then there
is nothing he can say."

Abdullah, who had had some experience of rich men, wished he could be
sure of that. "It may not be quite that simple," he said. "In fact, now
I think about it, I am certain our only prudent course is to leave
Zanzib. This ought to be easy, because I do happen to own a magic
carpet. There it is, up on the bank. It brought me here. Unfortunately
it needs to be activated by a magic word which I seem only able to say
in my sleep."

Flower-in-the-Night picked up a lamp and held it high so that she could
inspect the carpet. Abdullah watched, admiring the grace with which she
bent toward it. "It seems very old," she said. "I have read about such
carpets. The command word will probably be a fairly common word
pronounced in an old way. My reading suggests these carpets were meant
to be used quickly in an emergency, so the word will not be anything too
out of the way. Why do you not tell me carefully everything you know
about it? Between us we ought to be able to work it out."

From this Abdullah realized that Flower-in-the-Night-if you discounted
the gaps in her knowledge-was both intelligent and very well educated.
He admired her even more. He told her, as far as he knew them, every
fact about the carpet, including the uproar at Jamal's stall which had
prevented him hearing the command word.

26

Flower-in-the-Night listened and nodded at each new fact. "So," she
said, "let us leave aside the reason why someone should sell you a
proven magic carpet and yet make sure you could not use it. That is such
an odd thing to do that I feel sure we should think about it later. But
let us first think about what the carpet does. You say it came down when
you ordered it to. Did the stranger speak then?"