Throne of Sand (2020 Reissue)

by Helena Rookwood

  A murmur filled the room as the thieves repeated the words amongst themselves. I turned back to look at them. Aliyah met my gaze with wide eyes, and I shook my head slightly. Her face darkened.

  I repeated the riddle to myself, whispering the words out loud.

  “What about rope?” one of the thieves shouted. “That can be straight and curved.”

  “It’s not cold in the sunlight, though, Gadiel, is it?” Lisha snapped.

  “What about a sorcerer?” Rafi’s boyish voice floated above the others. “They have magic that can kill and heal.”

  “It doesn’t fit the rest of it,” I replied distantly, scanning the riddle for a third time.

  “I don’t have all day, you know,” the jackal-headed spirit complained.

  “Oh really? Where else you got to be, stone head?” Rafi taunted.

  The spirit huffed, but didn’t reply.

  It was no use. The thieves wouldn’t be able to help me. The ring suddenly felt warm on my finger. Tarak. If ever there was time to use one of my wishes, it was now, when I was, quite literally, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

  I rubbed the jewel with my thumb. “Keep hidden,” I murmured softly. A tiny tendril of smoke wafted from the ring, then nothing. Where is he?

  There was the lightest pressure on my shoulder, like a brush of fingertips. “You called, princess?”

  I flinched at Tarak’s voice close to my ear. But he wasn’t standing next to me. I squashed down my chin to look at my shoulder out of the corner of my eye. The shell of a beetle glinted in the torchlight like a jewel, changing from blue to green to purple.

  Of course, even as a beetle, Tarak had to look flashy. I shifted so my right shoulder was hidden from the thieves.

  “Quite a pickle you’ve gotten yourself into here, princess,” the djinni continued in a soft voice. “A real life-and-death situation. Or death-and-death, depending on how you look at it.”

  “Ssh!” I hissed.

  The thieves’ chattering hushed behind me. They probably thought I was quieting them so I could think.

  “You’ve had quite the day. Escaping the palace. Dodging the city guards. Now you’ve made some questionable new friends who don’t seem to care if you die.” His legs skittered over my shoulder, and I repressed the urge to flinch. “It seems you’ve made another deal, instead of seeing through the one you made with me.” He made a horrible clicking sound and something nipped at my earlobe.

  “Ow!” I jerked my head to the side, then cast a wary glance over my other shoulder. Lisha and Aliyah, and several of the other thieves, had their eyes trained on me now. I didn’t have time for Tarak’s chiding.

  “I wish to be able to solve this riddle,” I whispered.

  “Granted,” came Tarak’s immediate reply.

  I kept still as a rush of heat swept through me, then waited for the wish to work. But distressingly, I still didn’t know the answer.

  I looked back up at the riddle again, hoping that once I read the words, the answer would just pop into my mind by magic.

  Nothing. I still drew a blank.

  “It didn’t work,” I hissed under my breath. “I don’t know the answer. Do it again.”

  “Hmm.” Tarak somehow sounded like he was repressing a smirk, even in his insect form. “That’s weird. I guess you wished for the ability to solve the riddle, rather than the answer.”

  “That’s how you said these wishes worked. I had to wish for enhancements to myself.”

  “Then I guess you must already have had the ability to solve the riddle. Why don’t you try another? Try wishing for the ability to solve the riddle instantly.”

  Rage rushed through me, my body turning cold. “You manipulative pile of…” I clenched my jaw. “I’m not wasting another wish just for you to misinterpret it,” I hissed. My hand twitched, eager to swipe the deceitful djinni from my shoulder.

  “What are you whispering to yourself about?” Lisha’s scornful voice floated above the chatter of the rest of the thieves.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath. “Get back into the ring,” I snapped. A thin spire of purple smoke told me Tarak had obeyed as I turned toward the thieves. The queen had her arms crossed, the crossbow tucked beneath them.

  “Better start guessing, scholar.”

  I turned back to the stone spirit and gulped.

  “Straight and curved, cold in sunlight, kills and heals,” I murmured to myself.

  I struggled to control my fury at Tarak, but consoled myself with the thought that if the wish hadn’t worked, it had to be because I could solve the riddle.

  “Is it a sword?” I blurted out as soon as the idea popped into my head. A blade could be straight or curved, like a scimitar. Metal was cold, and it definitely killed…but healed? I winced.

  “Incorrect.” The spirit clapped its stone hands together with a horrible crack. “But finally, a guess. Two left.”

  I shook my head, trying to force myself to concentrate.

  Something that healed and killed. What healed? Herbs? So, what about some sort of plant? There were plenty that could be poisonous or beneficial, depending on how they were prepared. I racked my brain for anything I’d read on botany, but nothing sprang to mind.

  “Is it a plant?” I asked. Best to keep it vague. The spirit could always ask me to be more specific if I were on the right–

  “Wrong!” The spirit’s barely repressed glee echoed through the chamber. “Last chance.” It dropped down from its perch above the doors, landing on the flagstone in front of me with a loud crash. It cracked its stone knuckles. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to get to do some smiting today.”

  I took a step backward.

  My head physically hurt as I tried to tease out the riddle. I thought I’d been onto something with the plant that was both poisonous and healing.

  My head snapped up. Weren’t there creatures that could be used to make both poisons and medicines?

  “It’s a snake!” I cried. “It can be straight or coiled, it’s cold-blooded, and the antidote to its venom can only be made with the venom itself.”

  As a child, I had been bitten by a snake in the palace gardens. The healers had captured the same snake and made a cure from its venom. They’d saved my life that day.

  “Oh.” The stone jackal’s shoulders slumped, and it took several scraping footsteps my way. “So close.”

  My heart knocked in my chest, my face falling. “I’m not right?”

  “No, you are, but I was so close to my first smiting of the month,” the spirit grumbled. “Congratulations. You have bested the riddle of the Spirit of the Doors,” it intoned quickly and flatly, as if reading from a piece of paper. “Now, choose the correct door to enter the library. The remaining two doors will lead only to death.”

  I groaned. “I solved the riddle, yet there are more threats of death?”

  “You solved the riddle, so the right door should be obvious,” the spirit replied acidly.

  I scanned the wooden doors set into a recess in the wall. Each was the same size, made of the same wood, and studded with the same dark metal. My gaze roamed the stone carvings surrounding each of the doors. Lions prowled, birds flew, and serpents twined through the stonework.

  Serpents. That’s it. The middle door had a stone serpent carved directly above it.

  “It’s the middle door,” I said, striding forward.

  I pushed it open. A metallic whoosh rang out at the same time, and the thieves collectively sucked in a breath that sounded like a roar to my ears.

  I spun around, the knob still in my hand, the door cracked open only an inch. “What?”

  “Woah!” Rafi’s eyes almost bulged out of his head. He jumped down the steps so he was level with me. “When you opened this door, these blades came out of the other two.” He slashed through the air with his hand. “They would have…” He drew a finger across his neck, lolling his head to one side. “Imagine if you’d chosen the wrong door!”


  I pressed my lips together, glaring at Aliyah and Lisha as they walked toward me. “Yes, imagine.”

  Taking their cue from their leaders, the rest of the thieves poured past me, through the door, and into the library beyond.

  I pushed through the door with the throng of thieves, then immediately stopped in my tracks. The thieves behind me walked straight into my back, cursing.

  A huge, cylindrical building stretched up above me. The library was the full width and height of the tower, curved shelves lined with books stretching up as far as I could see. At the very top, no larger than a gold coin, was a window that let in a wash of light that illuminated the sliding ladders and narrow ledges, which seemed to be the only way to navigate the wooden shelves hugging the walls.

  My heart sank. How was I supposed to find The Book of Talismans before the thieves? How were any of us supposed to find it?

  The door slammed shut behind us. The jackal-spirit perched above it, and with a smooth movement, he spun around the giant hourglass hanging above the door. Fine, crimson sand began to trickle through from the top to the bottom.

  “You have until the sand runs out before–”

  “Let me guess. Before the smiting?” I cut him off, and someone behind me snorted with laughter.

  “Yeah. Enough with the smiting talk, stone head!” another of the thieves heckled.

  “How long do we have, spirit?” Aliyah asked, her voice composed.

  “You shall have until the fateful sands of time…” The spirit trailed off as Aliyah cocked her crossbow and aimed it at him.

  “Enough. How long?”

  “Th-That can’t hurt me, human,” the spirit replied, but he didn’t sound sure. He eyed her tattooed head warily. “An hour. You have an hour.”

  Aliyah turned to me, a frown crossing her face.

  I crossed my arms. “What?” I didn’t like the look on her face. At all.

  She jabbed the crossbow toward the books towering above us. “Well, this is what you’re here for, isn’t it, scholar? To help us find the book.”

  My jaw dropped. “Wait – you don’t know where it is in here?”

  Aliyah took a step toward me, her crossbow still in her hand. “We only know the book title, not what it looks like. I need you to–”

  “You need me to what? Check several thousand books by myself in the next hour?”

  Aliyah let out a growl of frustration. “Look, we’re running out of time.” She gestured at the hourglass. “If you help us find this book, I will deliver your letters to and from Yadina for no charge. You have my word.”

  I groaned, running a hand through my hair. What she was asking was impossible. But if I left here without finding out whether the book said anything about the Night Diamond talisman, and whether an enemy of Astaran was also searching for it, all of this would be for nothing…

  I glanced up at the hourglass. The sand slowly poured through with a soft tinkling sound.

  “Okay,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t regret it. And that maybe the thieves would let me take a look through the book if I helped them. “I’ll do it. But there’s only one of me. Bring me as many books as you can and I’ll check the titles.”

  Lisha flinched. The thieves all hesitated, glancing at Aliyah for confirmation.

  “Do as she says,” the thief queen cried. “Now!”

  The thieves jumped into action, running around the library, yanking books off the closest shelves.

  “Start from the bottom, then work up,” Lisha shouted.

  Thieves crowded around me, thrusting musty books under my nose. There were huge tomes and slender editions. Some were bound in the finest leather, others no more than sheaves of parchment held together with knotted string.

  “No…no…no…no…no…no,” I repeated endlessly, my eyes skimming titles. “Not so close,” I grumbled when one of them whacked my nose with a book.

  “Give her some space, Sirhan,” Aliyah ordered from behind me. “Form a line, you animals!” The thieves dropped into an orderly queue to brandish the books at me.

  Titles on astronomy, mathematics, languages, culture, and geography flashed before my eyes. “No…no…no…no…no…no,” I intoned, reading faster than I ever had in my life.

  A bead of perspiration ran down my forehead. Not all of the titles were even written in the common tongue. What if The Book of Talismans was in a script I didn’t recognize? At least I had studied several languages with my tutor…

  The minutes flew by in a haze of words and covers. I glanced up at the hourglass, my eyes dry and itchy. It was already half empty. I’d stopped saying no a long time ago, replacing it with a small shake of my head. The thieves still ransacked the shelves.

  “This is useless,” I croaked, turning to Aliyah. We’d barely checked the bottom ring of shelves, and there were thousands more stretching up above us. “There must be an index or something.”

  “A what?” Aliyah looked blank.

  “It’s a book that lists all the other books. To help people find things. An index matches the books with their position in the library.” I looked down at the floor, nodding at the way it was marked out in several wedge shapes, like a sundial. Symbols were etched into each segment, symbols which would no doubt correspond with the index, if we ever found it.

  Lisha scoffed. “So to find the book we actually need, you want us to waste our time looking for another book?”

  I ignored Lisha, directing my words to Aliyah. “It’s the only way we stand a chance. Look.” I pointed down at the stone floor. “The index will have a symbol to tell us which part of the library, then a number to tell us which shelf. See? The bottom shelves are number one.”

  Aliyah narrowed her eyes.

  “If it contains information on all these books, it’s likely to be quite big. About this thick.” I held up my two hands to demonstrate for all the thieves who had gathered around me, listening. “And it’ll be on the lowest shelf, so the scholars can easily use it for reference.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Aliyah shouted at the thieves. “You heard the girl. Find this index. Fast!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The thieves ransacked the bottom shelf of the library, heaving over any big tomes so I could check them.

  The jackal-spirit moved agitatedly above us, thumping around from ledge to ledge.

  “Put that back,” he chided. “Don’t just drop it onto the floor like that, you cretin. You’re creasing the pages!”

  I tried to tune out his chastising, focusing on the books flashing in front of me.

  “Anything yet?” Aliyah asked hopefully.

  “No, but it’s got to be here somewhere. Every library has one. Even the smaller ones. A place this huge couldn’t function without one.” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. They’re usually kept right near the door.”

  But the shelves near the door were empty. I’d already seen those books, and none of them had been an index. I briefly considered calling on Tarak again, but after he’d just tricked me with the riddle, I was pretty sure he’d be no help.

  “Get your grubby mitts off that one,” the spirit hollered at Rafi. “Those pages are lined with gold.”

  “Gold?” Rafi’s eyes lit up, and he promptly began to tear pages from the book. The spirit gave a cry of anguish.

  I rolled my eyes. His shrieks and complaints did nothing to aid my concentration. He sounded just like the fussy librarian from our palace in Satra. Except, of course, he wasn’t human and was made of stone.

  I turned away, then froze in place.

  The spirit sounds just like a librarian…

  “Spirit!” I spun around, gesturing for him to come down.

  He paused mid-rant, then leapt from one of the shelves and onto the table next to me. The wood creaked and buckled slightly under his weight.

  “This is all your fault.” He glared at me, then snapped his head up to look over my shoulder. “No, not that shelf! I just reorganized that yesterday…”
/>   “They’re messing up all your hard work, aren’t they?” I shook my head. Aliyah looked like she was about to say something, but I silenced her with a glance. “It’s such a shame. I’ve never seen such a beautifully organized library before.” The jackal’s stone eyes widened. “Really,” I continued. “It’s a work of art, considering its size.”

  “Thank you,” the spirit replied earnestly. “You know, I spend so much time organizing these books, but do I get a word of thanks from those stuffy scholars?”

  “I bet not.”

  “Now your friends are ruining everything. This will take me weeks to clean up.”

  I leaned toward him, lowering my voice. “You know, they can’t even read.”

  “What?” the spirit shrieked, looking at Aliyah with horror. It turned its gaze to the rest of the thieves, who still swarmed the shelves like ants.

  Aliyah raised her eyebrows and looked at me questioningly. I pointed emphatically to the back of the jackal’s stone head.

  Index, I mouthed. Her eyes widened.

  “I know, I know. It’s shocking, isn’t it?” I said, my tone placating. “But listen… What’s your name?”

  “Papyremes.”

  “Lovely. Listen, Papyremes, they just need one book. So if you can help me out and tell me where it is, we’ll be able to get out of your, um…hair.” I winced at the stone jackal’s smooth head.

  Papyremes still watched the thieves ransacking the shelves, wincing every once in a while. He looked back at me. “What book?”

  “The Book of Talismans,” I said quickly. “Heard of it?”

  “Of course,” Papyremes answered. “A very interesting tome. It’s in the Sun sector, shelf 138.” The jackal turned back to the hourglass. “You’d better hurry, though. That’s quite a climb, and you’ve only got fifteen minutes left.”

  “Sun sector!” My eyes roamed the floor.

  “Over here!” Rafi waved me over, pointing to a carving of a sun in one segment of the circle. I raced over and put one foot on the ladder, craning my neck up to look at the shelves lining the tower walls.

  “There’s not much time. Hurry!” Aliyah ordered.