"Get out those coin purses, it's time to shop shop shop!"

Such were the words by one of the chaperones. Or maybe an older student, Philo wasn't really paying attention. After lunch the students had been given a brief tour of how the famed Cairo Antiquities market was arranged before getting free time as long as they stayed within the boundaries. This included how to slip into an alleyway behind two stalls, one run by a necklace dealer with very bright teeth and another that served some local delicacy with a very pungent almost nauseating odor. The stalls past these two traded international goods of definite magical origin, things like mummy dust or chimera scales or any other bits you didn't find in Diagon Alley. It was, in many ways, like the Egyptian equivalent of the British shopping district.

Philo had some minor apprehension but even with the mass of people chattering all around in languages he didn't understand, with the occasional garbled english drowned out by the din he was getting some relief. He'd done well to keep the stowaway carpet they called Runner hidden for the first half of the trip. At least now, and subsequent points afterwards, it would be easier to make up a story like his mother had given him money solely to buy a foreign carpet for the living room, or something. To anyone else this might be a stretch but Francine Falkin had an approach to home decor about as random as the building materials the homestead cottage, Steeple Underfoot, was built out of.

However, claiming where you got a carpet and maneuvering the long rolled up rug without bumping into people were entirely different beasts. Philo apologized for the umpteenth time today when an end of the carpet knocked a man over, his words dark sounding and probably a swear in his given tongue. Great. Increased vocabulary for Arlaug.

There had to be flying carpet stall around here somewhere. Philo had yet to see one. He had thought they were going to be as popular as broom shops in England, owing to different policies about transport. It would be a start to do some comparisons with Runner, a carpet observed to have different abilities outside of the typical 'flight' ones many would associate with a magic carpet.

“I am doing a lot of shopping on this trip…” Alvis reflected as he wandered through the antiques market, a messenger bag over his shoulders and a few extra coins in his pocket just in case. Of course, he wasn’t really planning on buying anything here – antiques were far too expensive and he couldn’t read any of the books – nor had he bought anything during the last two trips except for that gift for Cyhirae. Still, spending this much time around shoppers – especially around crowds of shoppers – was strange for him.

But, of course, he wasn’t here to shop; and after a bit of searching he finally spotted his main reason for coming in the form of a familiar blue-and-red pattern bobbing awkwardly through the magical crowd. Alvis hurried up behind Philo and caught the end of the rug with one arm, tugging it safely out of the path of a woman in a burka who didn’t seem to see it coming.

“Need a hand?” Alvis said, offering Philo a grin. As he settled his end of the carpet onto his shoulder, he gave the rug an affectionate pat and dropped his voice down to whisper, “Hey there, Runner. Going to behave today?”

One of the carpet’s tassels flicked him across the nose as though in answer, though what exactly that answer was, Alvis couldn’t have said. He stumbled a bit trying to keep his steps in time with Philo’s, but got the rhythm eventually and did his best to steer the rolled-up Runner out of the path of incoming traffic.

“Have you seen any carpet stands yet?” Alvis asked Philo under the din of the crowd. “There's not been a single one that I've found. It’s like trying to get a broom during a wood shortage.”

“Need a hand?” asked Alvis as he picked up the other end of the carpet.

"Yes, thank you!" Philo was very much relived. Having Alvis know about the carpet, and be a fellow housemate beyond their separate years, had created the threads of a bond, Philo thought. He wasn't one to keep secrets...a bold faced lie, there were things about himself he still didn't explain to his family. But he didn't lie or keep secrets from his peers, excluding Runner here. So Philo was glad that Alvis was keeping quiet until they could figure out just what exactly this magic carpet was.

"None, although I've only just walked in," Philo replied. What made the search harder was how each stall sold a little bit of everything. Jewelry, delicate instruments, beads, spices, lengths of cloth, amulets and even more. They reached a junction, the stalls stretching left and right. If this was like Diagon Alley, this could be like the split to Knockturn where the shops got incredibly more Dark. Philo couldn't tell, from glancing at the mirrored tents of antiques, which ones looked more evil. He went left.

Along this narrow way the merchandise got bigger. Clay jars and pots, cages with strange creatures, blocks of stone that must have been taken from tombs, tapestries. Nothing that looked like carpets.

"I dunno, should we go the other way?" Philo asked. He stared at the tapestries on display. Nothing like the ones at Hogwarts, like that one of Barnaby-whoever that taught ballet to giants. He had been expecting something like a mural, but the tapestry had no recognizable forms. It was an odd pattern of colors, almost like Runner's...

"Wait, this could be it!" He felt like slapping himself in the head. It was a carpet, but hung against the wall he had thought it was a tapestry. "Yeah, look! There's more." This stall was much bigger, really a canopy covering a shop space set into the building behind it.

“Brilliant,” Alvis said, catching sight of the shop when Philo pointed it out. "C’mon, let’s get inside.”

Most of the rugs in the storefront seemed normal, but if there were any doubts about the shop’s wizarding properties, they were expelled when they entered the building proper and Alvis nearly hit his head on a floating lantern. There were dozens of these oil lanterns throughout the shop, illuminating the windowless building with a flickering gloom that Alvis found immediately appealing – it reminded him of the Astronomy tower during Professor Trishna’s more in-depth lectures.

Further in, the rugs themselves became more obviously magic, some hovering inches off the ground while others featured moving subjects, like those at Hogwarts. To Alvis’s right hung a rug with a vertical pattern that stood a head taller than him. It was dark blue and decorated with pale birds - cranes, pheasants, even a phoenix in the very center – which moved a choreographed dance of feathers and wings. But something tickled the back of his mind as ‘off’.

“This isn’t right,” he said out-loud, peering closer at the bird-rug without touching it. “I’ve seen these patterns. They’re Chinese, not Egyptian.”

“That’s right,” said a voice from the very back of the stand. “Don’t let my humble facilities distract you. My stand brings the finest magical rugs from all over the world together under a single tarp. You won’t find a better place in all of Cairo. I guarantee it.”

Turning from the bird-rug, Alvis peered into the shadows to catch a glimpse of the shopkeeper. Between the crowded stand and his eyes still adjusting from the bright sun, he could only make out the vague outline of a figure sitting behind a wide counter in the very back.

When Alvis pointed out the rug with the birds, Philo couldn't help but stare at it for a while. He also thought the design was odd, but the shopkeeper's explanation confirmed that this spot dealt with magic carpets traded from all over the world.

Although now that they were here, Philo wasn't too sure what the next step should be. He paused, then sat Runner up like a cylindrical tower, unrolling an edge to get a glimpse of the pattern. If there was a carpet that matched, maybe it was the same kind.

This, however, caused unwanted attention from the shopkeeper. "Are you wanting to trade? I give good rates, you can upgrade your rug to a better model."

As if Runner understood, the carpet in Philo's hands squirmed angrily. "N-no, we're not looking to trade, just wondering..." Philo was rather out of his element. Not being one for shopping and being very unfamiliar in this distant land, the first venture he'd ever had outside Great Britain. He gave Alvis a pleading look, hoping the older Ravencalw might be able to explain the situation better.

"Woah, Runner. Down boy, we're not trading you in." Alvis soothed, patting the thick cylinder of Runner's body. He caught Philo's pleading look and got the gist of what the younger boy wanted him to do. Of course, Alvis wasn't much good at talking with strangers either...

He turned back to the shopkeeper, clearing his throat to buy himself a little extra time to think of something to say. "Ah, well - ahem - you see....We, er, that is, my friend here, sort've inherited this carpet from a...relative?" He winced and rubbed the back of his neck. Lying, even to a stranger, was not his strongest point. "And, well, we don't know much about it. Or much of anything, really. Thing is that it's very old, an antique we think, and there's nothing like it where we come from. Actually, we don't have any enchanted carpets at all, not ones that move around like this, just the moving pictures. Like those."

He indicated the Chinese bird rug with a nod of his head. His vision was starting to adjust to the shop's gloom, and he could now pick out that it was one of a number of bird-rugs of all different styles, clustered together by subject like the portraits in an art gallery.

"So we don't really know what to do with this one," he continued, turning back to Runner and taking hold of one tasseled corner. He wound a few more inches from the cylinder so the shopkeeper could more clearly see the pattern. "See, the pattern doesn't move, but it does. The rug, I mean. He - it - can move and slip through things and, well, trip people, but it can't fly. We're not sure where it came from or what happened to leave it in such a state, so we hoped that you would be able to tell us."

Philo was happy with the explanation from Alvis, it was very much like the thoughts in his head he had trouble forming. He cringed as the shopkeeper leaned forward, giving off a smell like spices and heavy wool as he stroked his beard.

"The carpet moves but its design does not? Static designs haven't been as popular for several decades. But it does not fly? Lay it out here."

"Oh, sure," Philo guided one end of Runner to the counter to roll out. The shopkeeper stared at it for a tense minute, running his fingers over the weave.

"The design is not of our culture but it...familiar. Excuse me." He exited through a curtained door, further into his shop.

Philo grew worried again. "Did you see his face? What do you suppose he's thinking?"

“I’m not sure,” Alvis said, frowning at the curtain where the man had disappeared. “Maybe he’s just been in the business so long that he’s not used to having to look up merchandise in a trade catalogue? Like if Mister Ollivander couldn’t recognize a wand. It’d shake him, I think.”

He shrugged, patted Runner and, aware that he’d probably never have another chance once they got back to Britain, began idly examining some of the rugs that were on display. The shopkeeper was right, of course – even the flying rugs bore active patterns that moved and swirled like incoming tides or fields of flowers blowing in the wind. Privately, Alvis found these gaudy, but he felt that voicing such a thought would be rude so he turned his attention to the collection of moving birds instead.

It was then that he spotted it, a tiny rug the center of the shifting birds, barely larger than a tea-towel. Compared to its crowded neighbors, this one was quiet and bore only a single subject, a small white bird that Alvis might have called a dove were it not for its tail feathers, which extended past the edge of the rug. It flapped its wings slowly, flying through a star-studded night sky and giving off a trail of soft blue sparks.

The picture was pretty and unoffensive but, though there was so much going on around it, Alvis found that he couldn’t look away. He stared, cocked his head, and said, “Say, what sort of bird is that?” as he pointed the little rug out to Philo.

"Ah," Philo said at the hypothesis. "Like, having to identify a wand with a different core, maybe?" Ollivander only ever made unicorn hair, phoenix feather or dragon heartstring wands, universally some of the most durable and accessible wands. But even these days at school, you found some students that boasted their wands with more unusual cores. Come to think of it, did Ollivander use the same breed of dragon heartstring in all his wands, like one of the more harvested types? Or did all dragons have similar enough hearts regardless of sub species?

"Eh?" Philo replied. He looked at the bird Alvis pointed to, a white one will a long tail almost five times the length of the body, like a peacock's. Amateur bird-watching was one of Philo's lesser known hobbies, although since his omnioculars where in a state of disassembly he hadn't been doing it so frequently. "It's not a British one, maybe it's foreign. I might have read about it somewhere, it looks familiar."

He tried to sound out the name. "Ki--? No, Cal--? It's almost like saying the word 'cauldron' but not--"

"Young sirs!" The name game was interrupted by the reappearance of the shopkeeper leaning out of the door to his back room. "Would you come here, please? And bring the carpet."

Philo froze, unsure of whether it was a good idea or not to follow someone he never met before into a closed off room.

Alvis tapped his nose thoughtfully, trying to draw the memory to the surface. He knew that bird, he was certain of it, but the name of it wouldn't come, even after Philo started giving suggestions. 'Cauldron' sounded close, but not quite, and there was another name along with it that was struggling to be heard. Fi...Fai....

"Young sirs! Would you come here, please?"

"Ow." Alvis brought his hand to his forehead, wincing with pain. The sudden interruption felt like a girder had been literally dropped across the tracks of his train of thought, and the resulting messy crash sent shudders of pain through his head with every heartbeat. The lanterns carried aura that made his balance spin, and all thoughts of birds and names were gone.

"Gimmie a second," he muttered to Philo, reaching for his bag. "Headache." And a bad one. This called for mixing meds. Aspirin and willowfine potion were close enough in structural composition that they worked well together, in the right doses. He popped a single pill into his mouth, downed it with a swig of cloudy gray potion, and sighed. "All right. We're coming. Here, I'll take this end."

Alvis winced next to him. "Are you alright?"

"Gimmie a second. Headache."

Philo wasn't sure if this was something significant or not. Sudden headaches could be tied to very old, unknown and unconscious magic. But Alvis had the occasional headache at school, it wasn't as if this was uncommon for him. If it had been the sign of something more than just a migraine, Alvis would probably have something to say about it. The older student shrugged it off with his medicine.

"Oh, right," Philo grabbed the front of the carpet. Similarly, his own mind became singularly attuned to the events in front of them. The shopkeeper had disappeared from the door. Philo stepped through. The back was very closed in, with more carpets bound in rolls on shelves. "H-Hello?"

"Back here, please."

Following the voice, the storeroom gave way to a narrow hallway that ended in an office with two desks and shelves stacked with scrolls, lit by a solitary lantern.

"Prop it here, you can let it go." Once Runner was leaning against the wall, the shopkeeper unrolled a section to study the pattern. He mumbled something Philo couldn't understand, though it sounded like words of reverence. After a moment he turned to them.

"Young sirs, where did you ever find the Lost Carpet of Amahté Ialu?"

Philo went slack jawed. Lost Carpet? Some name he already knew he could not pronounce? "What?"

"Amahté Ialu was a very powerful wizard and even a pharaoh in his time. They said he had 'Power over Dreams' which where his most heralded abilities. He ordered this carpet for himself. I know because my family has been trading carpets since the Ancient days. This is the very original order."

He showed them a piece of papyrus in a glass frame. On it was the scratching of an old system of writing and a sketch of a carpet, the design a copy of Runner's in smaller form.

With his headache still fading, Alvis didn't quite grasp the implication of all that the salesman said until the papyrus was indicated. But when he finally caught up mentally and laid eyes on the writing, his jaw dropped. He might not know much about birds or carpets or even Arabic, but at his heart, Alvis was the son of booksellers, and he knew books.

"That's...old Egyptian," he muttered, picking out the slight differences between it and the similar classical Egyptian that Professor Trishna could read. "And the condition of that papyrus, even so well-preserved. This has got to be at least five thousand years old...no wonder he can't fly."

Runner's unraveled section twisted and the upper tasseled corner whapped Alvis on the head, as though offended by his statement. It was only a slight tap, but Alvis still winced, the pressure in his head still not completely gone. "Easy on the head-trauma, boy, I get enough headaches as it is..." He rubbed his temple with one hand and decided to answer the shopkeeper's question. "It sort've followed us out of a...closet. In Hogwarts. Long story. Do you know how Run...er, how this carpet would get there, sir?"

“Steady!,” Philo tried to wrestle with Runner when the carpet decided to cuff Alvis. “Um, apparently that’s a sore point, not being able to fly.” He wasn’t sure if that was the full story, however. For even without flying abilities Runner was a rather spectacular carpet, the way it was animated. And it looked pristine as the day it was first bought, not even the Egyptian sands had left a strain. After all, it had seemingly been one of very few things to survive the Room of Requirement getting burned in the Battle of Hogwarts. Why would that remain, if the power of flight had faded?

The shopkeeper was quick with a reply to the question. “That is how it came to be lost. Amahté Ialu did not even have his carpet for one day before it was stolen by bandits. It was a very spectacular carpet, unlike any before or since. Some of the powers are unknown, however, the order did not survive intact.” He indicated the upper section of the papyrus that was torn, only the bottom half of the script visible.

“But Ialu, he said he would not rest until he found the carpet again. But he never did, it was lost to the ages. Traded away, further stolen, who knows. As they arranged his burial tomb his carpet was not amongst his possessions, so his Ba did not find peace."

“His Ba?” Philo asked. “Is that, his soul?”

“His personage, the essence that made Amahté Ialu himself.” The shopkeeper mumbled more words incomprehensible, then turn to his shelf of scrolls looking for something.

"Wow," said Alvis, turning the shopkeeper's story over in his head. "If that's the case, then Runner might have been in the Room of Requirement since it was made...since Hogwarts was founded, even. Maybe one of the Founders got a hold of it somehow, or someone in the first round of teacher they hired...brilliant..." His imagination was running away with him now and he shook himself to reign it back in.

He noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Runner had stilled with the mention of Amahté Ialu,  almost as though he were recalling a name heard long ago. That just led credence to the idea that Runner really was the so-called Lost Carpet. And still questions remained...

"I take it that it hasn't been acting strangely just because it's old," he said, half to the shopkeeper and half to himself. He glanced to Philo. "Remember how it was acting back in the hotel? It's like it wanted to get out. Maybe it's trying to get back to its original owner...back where it belongs. Does that make sense to you?"

"That does make sense, it must have sensed it was in Egypt." It was lucky, then, that the carpet had still been in his trunk since the school year had finished. Philo suddenly felt strange. It had been nothing but trouble since Runner had 'imprinted' on him, you could say. He hadn't imagination that it did belong to someone else and how important that was. He looked at the still carpet, for once looking like a normal rug. If there was a way he could take Runner where it belonged, he would.

The shopkeeper cried out with jubilation, holding out a scroll. "Here it is! All that remains on where Amahté Ialu was buried. He was among the first buried in what we now call the Valley of the Kings."

"Our tour is going there!" Philo started. "Is there a way we could take Runn--err, Ialu's carpet back where it belongs?"

"If you are sure, young sirs." The shopkeeper presented them with the scroll. "The only clues of exactly where he is buried are written like a riddle. Again, in the ancient script."

"We're kind of known for solving riddles," Philo said. Although his heart flopped a bit looking at unrecognizable characters on the scroll. "What do you think Alivis? We've got about two weeks until we get there."