by Kit Downes
Zal’s heart skipped a beat. There was no hand holding the dagger. In the excitement of a real sword fight, he’d forgotten it was moving by itself! His sword curved through empty air, his momentum pulling him with it. His feet skidded on the floorboards and he fell over. He landed on his hands and looked up, just as the dagger flew downwards and hit him on the forehead with its pommel.
“OWW!” Zal collapsed on the floor, stars spinning in front of his eyes.
“ZAL! STAY DOWN!” shouted Zara.
Zara threw out her arms and sent twin red combat spells spinning across the room. She could feel magic resonating from the dagger, an immensely old and powerful spell. To her horror, her spells hit it and washed straight over it. Her magic broke apart like a raindrop hitting a paving stone. The dagger did not even notice and continued its rampage, flying in a wide circle around the room, cutting through carpets. Zara followed its path, hitting it with a stream of spells in the orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet shades. None of them worked. The dagger was protected against spell casting.
“ZARA! OUT OF THE WAY!” shouted Arna. He raised his crossbow, took aim and fired. The thick arrow shot across the room, hit the dagger and broke into pieces against the blade.
“Oh, camelpat!” Arna dived sideways as the dagger flew across the room in his direction and Augur pulled the distraught Denjar out of the way.
“WRAFF, WRAFF!” Rip sprang onto a chair, then onto a table, jumped and clamped his teeth around the dagger’s handle. The dagger slowed and its hilt drooped as Rip’s weight pulled it down. The dagger tried flying in a circle, then in a fast figure-of-eight to shake the small dog off, but Rip held on.
“GOOD BOY, RIP!” shouted Zal, pulling himself up on one of the tables with one hand and rubbing his forehead with the other. “HOLD ON… OH, STORK!”
The dagger suddenly nosedived and drove both its points into the floor.
“WRAAAL!” Rip was thrown off by the sudden impact and landed safely in a pile of cut-up six-shaders.
“OH, HOLY STORK!” said Zara, as the dagger wiggled free. It flew straight towards the last carpets left in the room, the block of new rainbow carpets, which it either hadn’t noticed before, or had decided to save for last.
“NOOO!” shouted Augur, Arna and Denjar together.
The dagger vanished into the block. They watched in horror as the rolled-up carpets swayed slightly and then started to sink inwards. Cut-up sections of rainbow carpet rolled out of it like ribbons and then the dagger burst triumphantly out of the bottom row, cutting through the last rainbow carpet that the block was floating on.
“ZAL!” Zara screamed.
Zal, staring in horror at the ruined block, followed her gaze and his heart turned to ice. The Rainbow Carpet – the Rainbow Carpet, their Rainbow Carpet – was still hanging on the repair frame and the dagger was turning towards it.
“NO!!!”
“WRAFF!!!”
Zal, Zara and Rip dived across the room, knocking the frame flat and throwing themselves on top of it and the carpet. They looked up as the dagger appeared above them – and stopped dead in the air.
Everyone froze. There was no sound except panting. The dagger hovered motionless over the black and grey Rainbow Carpet. It tilted sideways, as if it was considering it. Then it turned slowly in the air, surveying the rest of the shop. Sliced carpets were strewn over the tables like torn ribbons, hanging from the shelves and pooling on the floor. Of the hundreds of flying carpets in the shop, the ruined Rainbow Carpet was the only one left intact.
The dagger turned all the way around to face the hole in the door and flew back towards it, over the top of Denjar’s workbench, and its hilt caught the rim of the jar of Rivertree balm.
“No!” cried Zara, as the jar rocked and wobbled.
Zal got to his knees and scrambled forwards, but he was too late. The jar overturned, rolled off the table and broke, spilling Rivertree balm all over the floor. The dagger flew out of the door and vanished into the night as Zal and Zara watched in horror as the glowing blue potion soaked into the floorboards.
On the rooftop of a building across the street, the Knife Demon flew straight into the Leader’s hand.
“Magnificent!” said the Leader, smiling almost wide enough to tear his scarf. “The unstoppable power of the Knife Demon! It’s exactly like the legends said.”
“That was amazing!” said Etan, his eyes shining. They had watched the whole thing through the shop’s front windows.
“Just wait until we get back home and unleash it for real,” said the Leader. “All of Azamed will beg for mercy. That will be a sight worth seeing.”
“How soon do we leave, sir?” asked Hara.
“As soon as we have our vengeance on Zal and Zara,” said the Leader. “We’re going home once we’ve made sure that they never will.”
“Let me do it now, sir,” said Mira, drawing her scimitar. The curved blade gleamed in the moonlight. “They’ll still be in shock in there.”
“No, a slow and painful death by the sword is far too good for them,” said the Leader. “We’ll stick with the plan. It will give them a far more nightmarish fate and … OWW!”
The Leader jumped as the Knife Demon jabbed its points into one of his fingers. It flew out of his hand and down to the roof tiles at their feet.
“What?” said the Leader.
The Knife Demon pressed its points into the roof. Metal shrieked on terracotta and red dust flew as it moved back and forth.
MORE CARPETS! it carved into the roof tiles.
Seven
“I don’t understand,” said Miles. “Why didn’t it go for the Rainbow Carpet?”
It was half an hour later. Zal and Zara were sitting in the kitchen of the Nocturne family home, clutching hot cups of tea and still shaking. Rip was ravenously helping himself to Fluffy’s bowl in the corner and Fluffy was watching without complaining.
“Because it’s not a rainbow carpet any more,” said Zara. “The Knife Demon must be enchanted to go after the seven colours, but because black isn’t one of them, it left the carpet alone.”
“Or it just didn’t bother with it,” said Zal.
The Nocturne home was large and comfortable. Every room seemed to have a telescope in it made by Miles’ grandmother. In the garden, right beside the giant birdhouse that Celeste roosted in, there was a large pond with a family of water dragons living in it. As the house was closer to Denjar’s shop than the hotel, Zal and Zara had come here to recover from what had just happened.
“So as long it’s covered in ink and can’t fly, it’s safe, but as soon as you fix it, the Knife Demon will go straight for it?” said Miles. “Camelpat! What a twist of fate.”
“Don’t worry. We can’t fix it until we get more Rivertree balm,” said Zal.
“There’s no point,” said Zara. “It won’t work.”
She drew out a roughly cut strip of carpet and laid it on the table. It looked like one of the hundreds the Knife Demon had left strewn about the shop in its wake, but it was white. Zal blinked, trying to remember if he had seen a white carpet in Denjar’s shop. Then he noticed that there were four different weaving patterns running through it.
“It was a four-shader,” said Zara. “The Rivertree balm soaked it when the jar broke. The Professor was right. It washed the dye out of the threads.”
“Oh, Stork!” said Zal. “Now we’re finished. For real this time!”
“What about the Knife Demon?” said Miles. “Are you absolutely sure there’s no way to stop it?”
“How?” said Zal. “It moves by itself and there’s no one holding it to attack. We tried swords and magic. Nothing worked.”
“I tried all seven colours,” said Zara, shivering again. “It was unstoppable.”
“Holy Stork!” said Miles. “It’s the perfect weapon to sabotage the Champions’ Race! I wish I’d known about it sooner… I mean, maybe we could have stopped them getting it. Oh, I wish Dad was here so I could war
n him.”
“Where is Paradim anyway?” said Zal.
“He and Celeste went for a night-time training flight,” said Miles. “Celeste was hatched in Frostbite, remember? She likes flying at night when it’s cold. I don’t understand why. I can’t stand cold weather.”
“You couldn’t have stopped the Shadows if they really wanted it,” said Zal.
“I learnt that this afternoon,” said Miles. “The sergeants came in to report while Captain Curta was telling me off for bringing you there. They’d been all over the museum and the gardens twice and the headscarf was the only clue anyone found. The only other thing that wasn’t meant to be there was a couple of tiger tracks in one of the flowerbeds.”
“What?” said Zal, looking up. “Tiger tracks?”
“Yes. Three full-sized paw prints,” said Miles.
“What is it?” said Zara, looking at Zal.
“Tiger tracks?” said Zal, staring straight ahead. “At the Academy, Professor Maltho said that when the Crystal Flowers were stolen, the only clue they found was some black and orange fur in the display case.”
“What?” said Miles. “Tiger fur?”
“And now tiger tracks at the museum,” said Zal. “After the Knife Demon was stolen… That means…”
“OH, HOLY STORK!” said Miles.
He and Zal stood bolt upright, spilling their tea. Their faces went white as they pointed at each other with horror.
“Sari Stormstrong!” they said together.
“Who the Stork is Sari Stormstrong?” said Zara, five minutes later, as Zal finished checking all the doors were locked.
“She’s the most notorious thief in the Great Desert,” said Miles, peering out through the kitchen window. He had just dashed back downstairs from checking that his father’s trophy cabinet was still where it was meant to be. “She stole the Caldyn Prophecy Stones, the Diamond Crown of Endsali, the original copy of the Poems of Dalvina and pretty much everything else that’s worth stealing in the Seventeen Kingdoms.”
“She’s an orphan,” said Zal. “She was raised by tigers in the Quakajakian Rainforest and now she uses trained tigers in her burglaries. There’s a whole wall of WANTED posters for her in the Caliph’s Guard Offices at home. They put them up after she stole the Caliph’s wife’s favourite water lilies.”
“Only one wall?” said Miles. “There are three in the Royal Protectors’ Headquarters. But then again, she’s … ‘worked’ in Shirazar way more times than she’s been in Azamed. Camelpat! I can’t believe I didn’t see this before! She’s the perfect suspect for the crime wave.”
“But hold on, the Shadows are behind the crime wave,” said Zara. “We know they are. We found that headscarf at the museum.”
“No, that’s what I mean,” said Miles. “The Shadows are Azamedians. Lord Dasat was right. They’d find it hard to pull off so many burglaries here. So they’d need someone who knows Shirazar. Sari Stormstrong would be perfect.”
“She is a mercenary thief,” said Zal. “She doesn’t steal for herself. People hire her to steal stuff for them. The Shadows must have hired her to help them steal the Knife Demon.”
“And everything else that they’re going to need to sabotage the Champions’ Race,” said Miles. “Well done, Zal. You’re a genius.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“Let’s just hope Captain Curta can see it too,” said Miles. He grabbed a warm outdoor robe from a peg by the door and pulled it on.
“Where are you going?” said Zara.
“As a Royal Protector Cadet, it’s my duty to inform my superior officers immediately if I think there might be an internationally wanted criminal in the city,” said Miles. “If I can get the Captain to believe us, he’ll order an immediate search.”
“That would help,” said Zal. “Maybe if we can find her, she can take us to the Shadows before they use the Knife Demon again.”
“Exactly,” said Miles. “But you two better wait here. He threatened to court martial me if I tried to smuggle foreign visitors into a Shirazan investigation again.”
“Hold on, could you really find her quickly?” said Zara. “I know this is my first visit, but Shirazar’s a big place.”
“It is, but if Sari Stormstrong is here, she’ll probably be staying in one of few places,” said Miles. “The Desert Crab, most likely.”
“The what?” said Zal.
“It’s a disreputable inn on Plateau’s Edge Street,” said Miles. “All the smugglers who come to Shirazar from the Deep Desert stay there.”
“Where is it again?” said Zara, standing up.
“Whoa! Hold on!” said Miles, holding up his hands. “You can’t go there. It’s dangerous. It’s the most lawless corner of Shirazar.”
“Yes, but what’s the address?” said Zal.
“Zal, I’m serious,” said Miles. “You can get more than your wallet stolen around there. They’d probably even steal your hair to sell it on the underground wig market. Let me get Captain Curta. Then we can do this safely.”
“OK,” said Zal.
“If that’s what you think is best,” said Zara.
“Hold on,” said Miles, his eyes narrowing at their easy agreement. “Promise me you won’t go there alone.”
“Sure.”
“No problem.”
As its name suggested, Plateau’s Edge Street ran around the rim of the Shirazar Plateau. Most of the houses there did not have back gardens, just doors that opened straight over the rocky drop down to the desert. Cold winds rose up the cliffs from the sands, moaning like ghosts and swinging the creaky sign above the Desert Crab’s entrance. The inn was a large, ramshackle building that looked like it had been jumbled together out of rooms stolen from various other inns. The curtains were always drawn across the windows, even in the middle of the day. Tiles were missing from the roof, but the gutters and drainpipes were fixed firmly to the walls in case the inn’s customers needed to climb down them when the Royal Protectors paid a visit. There were several back doors and more than one cellar. The main room was busy and the big fireplace was blazing when Zal and Zara walked in.
“Holy Stork!” said Zal, under his breath. He quickly checked his sword and his wallet.
Bandits, brigands, river pirates, footpads, camel rustlers, sheep smugglers and every other kind of Great Desert criminal, mostly with dark eyes and thick beards that could be shaved off quickly when they needed to change their identities, were sitting in close circles around their tables. They were laughing and talking loudly to one another, but eyeing the other groups with suspicion and keeping their hands on the hilts of their knives. Rip whimpered behind Zal’s ankles, looking at the huge hunting dogs that were sprawled around the room, chewing on bones bigger than he was.
“Just look tough,” whispered Zara. “Act like we belong here.”
“Maybe we should have waited for Miles.”
“We said we wouldn’t come here alone and we didn’t. We came together,” said Zara. “Come on.”
Zara walked confidently across the room and up to the bar, where the innkeeper was pouring a drink for an ivory smuggler.
“Hello there,” said Zara. “We’re looking for Sari Stormstrong.”
“Never heard of her,” said the innkeeper. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“I don’t think you heard me correctly,” said Zara, dropping a handful of silver pieces on the bar. “I said we’re looking for Sari Stormstrong.”
“Oh, Sari Stormstrong!” said the innkeeper, sweeping the coins into his hand and putting them in the pocket of his apron. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Upstairs in the booths.”
“Thanks very much,” said Zara, as she and Zal headed for the stairs.
The first floor was quieter. The only sounds were the whispered conversations coming from inside the booths that lined the walls and the clink of money changing hands.
“Now how do we find her?” whispered Zal. Peering into each booth in turn was probably not going t
o be the safest option.
“You’re the criminal expert,” said Zara. “How would… Wait! Zal, look!”
Across the room, three waitresses who looked like the innkeeper’s daughters, were walking towards a booth at the far end. They were each carrying two large trays of raw meat.
“I think we’ve found her,” said Zara.
They approached the booth. Zal tried to keep his face tough as they looked around the wooden partition, but his eyes still widened slightly at the sight of the three full-grown tigers lying on the benches inside it, eating meat from the trays. Their orange fur glowed and shimmered in the lamplight, as they looked up at him and Zara with lazy curiosity. Rip hid behind Zal’s ankles again. Sitting in the middle of the tigers, with her back to the wall, was a tall girl dressed in green, eating a large bowl of rice and stew. Zal had never seen her before, but he recognized the long black ponytail and the four thin scars on her cheek straight away from a dozen WANTED posters.
“Sari Stormstrong?” said Zara.
“Who wants to know?” said the girl.
“I’m Zahna Aurada,” said Zara, sitting down beside Jeweltail. “This is my cousin, Zarl Thessalay.”
“Hello,” said Zal. He sat down on the opposite bench beside Cloudclaw, who growled and bared his teeth. Zal quickly stood up again.
“We hear you can steal anything,” said Zara.
“You’ve got good ears,” said Sari, eating another mouthful of stew.
“Does anything include information?” said Zara.
“Sometimes.”
“Good. Then we want to hire you,” said Zara. “There was a theft at the Shirazar Museum last night; an ancient stone casket. It contains something very old, rare and valuable. Our uncles are black magicians and they had plans for it, so we need to get it back. We’ll pay you three thousand gold pieces if you can find out who stole it and four thousand if you can find out where they are.”
