Rick Riordan - The Throne of Fire

For Conner and Maggie, the Riordan familys great brother-sister team

This is a transcript of an audio recording. Carter and Sadie Kane first made themselves known in a recording I received last year, which I transcribed as The Red Pyramid. This second audio file arrived at my residence shortly after that book was published, so I can only assume the Kanes trust me enough to continue relaying their story. If this second recording is a truthful account, the turn of events can only be described as alarming. For the sake of the Kanes, and for the world, I hope what follows is fiction. Otherwise we are all in very serious trouble.

CARTER HERE.

Look, we dont have time for long introductions. I need to tell this story quickly, or were all going to die.

If you didnt listen to our first recording, wellpleased to meet you: the Egyptian gods are running around loose in the modern world; a bunch of magicians called the House of Life is trying to stop them; everyone hates Sadie and me; and a big snake is about to swallow the sun and destroy the world.

[Ow! What was that for?]

Sadie just punched me. She says Im going to scare you too much. I should back up, calm down, and start at the beginning.

Fine. But personally, I think you should be scared.

The point of this recording is to let you know whats really happening and how things went wrong. Youre going to hear a lot of people talking trash about us, but we didnt cause those deaths. As for the snake, that wasnt our fault either.

Wellnot exactly. All the magicians in the world have to come together. Its our only chance.

So heres the story. Decide for yourself. It started when we set Brooklyn on fire.

The job was supposed to be simple: sneak into the Brooklyn Museum, borrow a particular Egyptian artifact, and leave without getting caught.

No, it wasnt robbery. We would have returned the artifact eventually. But I guess we did look suspicious: four kids in black ninja clothes on the roof of the museum. Oh, and a baboon, also dressed like a ninja. Definitely suspicious.

The first thing we did was send our trainees Jaz and Walt to open the side window, while Khufu, Sadie, and I examined the big glass dome in the middle of the roof, which was supposed to be our exit strategy.

Our exit strategy wasnt looking too good.

It was well after dark, and the museum was supposed to be closed. Instead, the glass dome glowed with light. Inside, forty feet below, hundreds of people in tuxedos and evening gowns mingled and danced in a ballroom the size of an airplane hangar. An orchestra played, but with the wind howling in my ears and my teeth chattering, I couldnt hear the music. I was freezing in my linen pajamas.

Magicians are supposed to wear linen because it doesnt interfere with magic, which is probably a great tradition in the Egyptian desert, where its hardly ever cold and rainy. In Brooklyn, in Marchnot so much.

My sister, Sadie, didnt seem bothered by the cold. She was undoing the locks on the dome while humming along to something on her iPod. I mean, seriouslywho brings their own tunes to a museum break-in?

She was dressed in clothes like mine except she wore combat boots. Her blond hair was streaked with red highlights very subtle for a stealth mission. With her blue eyes and her light complexion, she looked absolutely nothing like me, which we both agreed was fine. Its always nice to have the option of denying that the crazy girl next to me is my sister.

You said the museum would be empty, I complained.

Sadie didnt hear me until I pulled out her earbuds and repeated myself.

Well, it was supposed to be empty. Shell deny this, but after living in the States for the last three months, she was starting to lose her British accent. The Web site said it closed at five. How was I to know thered be a wedding?

A wedding? I looked down and saw that Sadie was right. Some of the ladies wore peach-colored bridesmaid dresses. One of the tables had a massive tiered white cake. Two separate mobs of guests had lifted the bride and groom on chairs and were carrying them through the room while their friends swirled around them, dancing and clapping. The whole thing looked like a head-on furniture collision waiting to happen.

Khufu tapped on the glass. Even in his black clothes, it was hard for him to blend into the shadows with his golden fur, not to mention his rainbow-colored nose and rear end.

Agh! he grunted.

Since he was a baboon, that couldve meant anything from Look, theres food down there to This glass is dirty to Hey, those people are doing stupid things with chairs.

Khufus right, Sadie interpreted. Well have a hard time sneaking out through the party. Perhaps if we pretend were a maintenance crew

Sure, I said. Excuse us. Four kids coming through with a three-ton statue. Just going to float it up through the roof. Dont mind us.

Sadie rolled her eyes. She pulled out her wanda curved length of ivory carved with pictures of monstersand pointed it at the base of the dome. A golden hieroglyph blazed, and the last padlock popped open.

Well, if were not going to use this as an exit, she said, why am I opening it? Couldnt we just come out the way were going inthrough the side window?

I told you. The statue is huge. It wont fit through the side window. Plus, the traps

Try again tomorrow night, then? she asked.

I shook my head. Tomorrow the whole exhibit is being boxed up and shipped off on tour.

She raised her eyebrows in that annoying way she has. Perhaps if someone had given us more notice that we needed to steal this statue

Forget it. I could tell where this conversation was going, and it wasnt going to help if Sadie and I argued on the roof all night. She was right, of course. I hadnt given her much notice. But, heymy sources werent exactly reliable. After weeks of asking for help, Id finally gotten a tip from my buddy the falcon war god Horus, speaking in my dreams: Oh, by the way, that artifact you wanted? The one that might hold the key to saving the planet? Its been sitting down the street in the Brooklyn Museum for the last thirty years, but tomorrow it leaves for Europe, so youd better hurry! Youll have five days to figure out how to use it, or were all doomed. Good luck!

I couldve screamed at him for not telling me sooner, but it wouldnt have made any difference. Gods only talk when theyre ready, and they dont have a good sense of mortal time. I knew this because Horus had shared space in my head a few months ago. I still had some of his antisocial habitslike the occasional urge to hunt small furry rodents or challenge people to the death.

Lets just stick to the plan, Sadie said. Go in through the side window, find the statue, and float it out through the ballroom. Well figure out how to deal with the wedding party when we get that far. Maybe create a diversion.

I frowned. A diversion?

Carter, you worry too much, she said. Itll be brilliant. Unless you have another idea?

The problem wasI didnt.

Youd think magic would make things easier. In fact, it usually made things more complicated. There were always a million reasons why this or that spell wouldnt work in certain situations. Or thered be other magic thwarting youlike the protective spells on this museum.

We werent sure who had cast them. Maybe one of the museum staff was an undercover magician, which wouldnt have been uncommon. Our own dad had used his Ph.D. in Egyptology as a cover to gain access to artifacts. Plus, the Brooklyn Museum has the largest collection of Egyptian magic scrolls in the world. Thats why our uncle Amos had located his headquarters in Brooklyn. A lot of magicians might have reasons to guard or booby-trap the museums treasures.