54 pages • 1 hour read
Castle in the Air
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Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Which Tells How Flower-in-the-Night’s Father Wished to Raise Abdullah Above All Others in the Land”
Abdullah goes to sleep and wakes in the garden. As Flower-in-the-Night runs toward him to elope, a huge djinn descends and kidnaps her. The carpet won’t obey Abdullah’s command to follow. The palace guards arrive at the commotion, and Abdullah gets the carpet to flee back to his stall.
In the morning, he is devastated. Djinns have such powerful magic that he can’t work out how to rescue Flower-in-the-Night. A party of northern mercenaries arrests him and takes him to the Sultan in chains. The Sultan reveals he found Abdullah’s nightcap in his daughter’s room, with his name sewn into it. He accuses Abdullah of abducting her and refuses to believe the story about the djinn. He reveals that the reason he kept her hidden was because it was prophesied that she would marry the first man, other than her father, that she saw. Abdullah says they aren’t yet married, hoping this might mean he will survive.
The Sultan orders him locked up in chains. He resolves to find Flower-in-the-Night, get them to marry to fulfill the prophesy, and then kill Abdullah so that she can still marry the prince of Ochinstan as planned. It would be a useful alliance as the northern countries have powerful weapons, including sorcery. He decides Abdullah will be impaled on a 40-foot stake, which Abdullah realizes would also fulfill his prophecy, raising him above the land.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Which Shows How Abdullah Went From the Frying Pan Into the Fire”
Abdullah assumes he will stay locked up in the dungeon forever, as Flower-in-the-Night will never be found. He feels awful for lying to her about being a prince and thinks maybe he deserves his fate. Suddenly, the carpet appears next to him, with Jamal’s dog on it, asleep. He realizes the dog must’ve dreamt of him. He gets on the carpet and instructs it to fly from the dungeon and hover by his stall without landing. There, he gives Jamal a purse of gold so he can take his dog and flee to the northern lands because his proximity to Abdullah will get him in trouble.
Pursued by guards, Abdullah gets the carpet to fly out into the desert. He realizes that when he flatters the carpet and treats it deferentially, it is more obedient. However, it comes to an abrupt halt near an oasis, throwing him off right in the middle of a group of armed bandits.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Which Introduces the Genie”
The leader of the bandits looks just like the one in Abdullah’s daydream. Abdullah addresses him by the same name, Kabul Aqba, which turns out to be right. Abdullah pretends he was locked up by the Sultan for being a magician, and he wants to join their group. He promises that if they remove the chains, he will use his magic for them. They are dubious, but ask him to identify a bottle they have just found, full of swirling smoke. He claims it’s a genie, hoping it will give him leverage. When they take the lid off, it turns out to be true.
The genie is angry at his captivity and turns two men into toads, but he also says he is compelled to grant one wish per day to his owner. Kabul Aqba threatens to kill Abdullah if he tries to make a wish himself, but asks his advice on what to wish for, seeing as he is knowledgeable. Panicking, Abdullah suggests a feast. The genie summons a banquet from the Sultan’s palace, with attending servants who are returned afterward. Abdullah realizes they will report on the bandits and on him.
Kabul Aqba falls asleep on the carpet, clutching the genie bottle. Abdullah realizes that when he dreams, the carpet will leave. However, as it flies, the bottle rolls off. Abdullah manages to get it and hide it.
Chapter 8 Summary: “In Which Abdullah’s Dreams Continue to Come True”
In the morning, Abdullah wishes for his chains to be removed. The genie grumpily obliges. He flees through the desert, leaving the hungover bandits asleep. It is terrible walking in the heat, but he thinks he must survive as he is prophesized to marry Flower-in-the-Night.
The next day, he wishes to be taken to Flower-in-the-Night, but the genie cannot grant the wish as he can’t locate her anywhere. Since he is bound to the bottle, he can’t access the magical realms.
Abdullah sees that soldiers on camels are approaching. The genie says he’s already made his wish, so he can’t have another: He aims to cause chaos. Abdullah debates with him, eventually convincing him to grant tomorrow’s wish in advance. He wishes to go to the closest person who can help him find Flower-in-the-Night. The genie is confused by who this is, but nonetheless whisks Abdullah a great distance to a colder, greener climate in front of an inn. He says the man who can help is asleep on a bench and is very dishonest.
Chapter 9 Summary: “In Which Abdullah Encounters an Old Soldier”
The sleeping man has a huge pack and is wearing the tattered remains of a uniform. Abdullah thinks he looks like a ruffian. The landlady emerges, and Abdullah’s flowery language flatters her. He orders food. The man wakes, and now looks entirely honest, but the landlady won’t serve him until he’s shown her his money. Abdullah orders the man a drink.
The man tells him his story, revealing that they are currently in Ingary. He is a soldier from Strangia. When Ingary defeated Strangia in a war by using their wizards, they put their king’s brother, Prince Justin, on the Strangian throne. They wanted to legitimize him by marrying him to the Strangian Princess, Beatrice, but the royal family fled. However, the king of Ingary paid off the Strangian soldiers with a bounty when he dismissed them from service. The man says he’s using his payout to explore Ingary, though he encounters some hostility in his uniform.
When more customers arrive, the soldier ignores Abdullah and chats with them instead. They buy him drinks, and the soldier tells them stories about the battle and the bounty he received. When he leaves, Abdullah overhears them planning to follow him and kill him for his gold.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
Where the first section established the goals of Abdullah’s quest, this section now develops obstacles, beginning the adventure in earnest by creating a series of concrete challenges he must overcome. Wynne Jones creates a fast pace as Abdullah is constantly pursued or imprisoned, whether by the Sultan’s men or the bandits. The plot moves from one problem to the next, following the tradition of a quest story. Abdullah uses a mix of magical tropes but also his ingenuity to get out of each situation: He successfully bargains with the bandits, the carpet, and the genie to save himself. This shows Abdullah’s ingenuity and adaptability, because although magic and luck exist, his character and choices are still important.
These challenges develop the theme of Personal Agency Versus Fate. Circumstances seem to remove all choice from Abdullah, and presumably from Flower-in-the-Night, when she is forcibly removed from the plot. She is kidnapped by an enormous djinn, a force so powerful it even controls the carpet, and Abdullah is locked up in a cell in chains without access to the carpet. However, the carpet comes to Abdullah because Jamal’s dog dreams about him: His earlier choices to be generous to Jamal and to his dog now impact his fate in an unexpected way. Wynne Jones suggests that although there are forces beyond an individual’s control, the choices a person makes throughout their life are still important overall.
This theme is also explored through the lens of gender, through Abdullah’s conversation with the Sultan. The Sultan believes that women don’t count as real people, so they shouldn’t get a say in their fate. He therefore asserts his right to make choices for Flower-in-the-Night. Abdullah argues against this, seeing it as unfair. He claims that he had planned to leave some time to make certain she really wanted to marry him, as he thinks that her circumstances might have restricted her ability to choose freely. Flower-in-the-Night’s own rebellion against her restrictive life is illustrated by how they only find the pictures and the nightcap once she is kidnapped, because she has carefully hidden them. In fact, she hid them so well that the Sultan didn’t find all the pictures, humorously showing her cleverness. Despite her circumstances, Flower-in-the-Night finds ways to assert agency.
These ideas about choice and fate also tie into the theme of The Importance of Learning from Experience. Abdullah learns that he cannot rely on fate, so he will have to take action instead. He realizes that the prophecy does not guarantee anything, as it could mean any number of things beyond elevated status—including his rides on the carpet, or being impaled on a high stake. This also ties in to Navigating the Lines between Fiction and Reality: The first section plays out like a story or fairytale, but in this section, Abdullah learns that reality will not be so easy. He learns that the real versions of his daydream are not as he imagined, such as how the physical experience of crossing the desert is terrible rather than romantic.
The fact that his fantasy about running away with Flower-in-the-Night is interrupted by a djinn also shows that fairytales and magic will not just serve Abdullah, but will also create obstacles for him. He learns that he cannot afford to be passive and live in his imagination, as when he wallows in his booth thinking about Flower-in-the-Night, the mercenaries find him and arrest him. Whenever he stops, he is pursued, whether by the lone camel rider or the Sultan’s men, so he has to learn how to be proactive and think fast. He adapts quickly to this new reality, learning how to flatter the carpet and bargain with the genie to keep moving forward.
This section also uses unexplained plot developments to create mystery and build anticipation for the rest of the book. For example, the djinn appears out of the blue to kidnap Flower-in-the-Night for an unknown reason, and Wynne Jones heightens this mystery as the genie is then unable to locate Flower-in-the-Night anywhere using his power. The genie is a useful device for creating mystery, since there is the unknown element of his own story, as he is resentful over being trapped; his magical knowledge and its gaps also create questions. He introduces the soldier as an important figure in the quest to find Flower-in-the-Night but does not know why. The soldier is also never given a name, hinting that his identity may be part of the puzzle.
However, the major mystery of this section is the escalation of Abdullah’s daydreams coming true. In the first section, this is broad enough that it could be a coincidence, but in this section, it is so specific that he guesses the bandit’s name correctly. This adds a layer of mystique over everything that happens and the fabric of reality. Overall, this section represents a rapid escalation of Abdullah’s adventures, in which the plot picks up pace and mystery.
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