Fantasy novel with elemental spirits in bottles

[Rainonneptune]

This is a book I read in the mid 90's. It was a thick, hardcover book with a sailing ship on the back cover, I don't remember the front. The main character was a young man with dark curly hair. He is on a boat, sailing when he is captured and sold into slavery. He ends up in an older women's house and she dresses him in pink silk and oils his hair. This part of the book has a kind of middle eastern or Indian flavor, he goes to a bazaar, clothes are described this way, etc. Central to the story are elemental spirits, some of which are called djinn, who have distinct personalities and may even speak. They are kept in bottles and can be used to cause storms and wind to sail the ship, there is a green lightning one. Toward the end of the book the young man goes home with them, they're friends. And that's it. I have been looking for this book for years.

 

[williamjm]

Some parts of that sound like Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Rose of the Prophet trilogy. One of the protagonists, Michael, starts off an ocean voyage to work as a missionary but gets captured and enslaved after they land. It does have a Middle Eastern-inspired setting and there are djinn. I think I read it in the early-mid 90s so it would be about the right era.

 

[Rainonneptune]

I looked it up and the cover is wrong, my book was a large heavy hardcover book with a dust cover that had a sailing ship. Nothing fantastic (on the back anyway), just a ship sailing away from the viewer. I think it was a single male author who wrote it, maybe his first name was Peter, maybe not. I was into Dragonlance around the time I read it and I think I would have remembered if it had been written by the authors you mentioned. I will try to track down The Rose of the Prophet and read it anyway, just in case. Thank you!