The Throne of Fire

The Throne of Fire (novel)

Author	Rick Riordan
Illustrator	John Rocco
Language	English
Series	The Kane Chronicles (Book 2)
Genre	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Hyperion Books
Publication date	May 9, 2011 (hardcover
Publication place	United States
Pages	446
ISBN	ISBN 978-1-4231-4056-6
OCLC	698117335
Preceded by	The Red Pyramid
Followed by	The Serpent's Shadow

The Throne of Fire is a 2011 fantasy adventure novel written by Rick Riordan. It is the second novel in The Kane Chronicles series, which tells of the adventures of modern day fourteen-year-old Carter Kane and his thirteen-year-old sister - Sadie Kane, as they discover that they are descended from the ancient Egyptian pharaohs Narmer and Ramesses the Great. It was released on May 3, 2011. The book takes place roughly three months after the first book, The Red Pyramid. It is followed by the third and final book in the series, The Serpent's Shadow, which was released on May 1, 2012.

Plot

At the beginning of the story, Carter, Sadie, Jaz, and Walt, are heading toward the Brooklyn Museum to "borrow" an ancient artifact. They need to find the three sections of book of Ra so they can revive the sun god Ra to stop Apophis, the god of Chaos, from rising and destroying the world. Sadie finds the section from the book of Ra in a statue of the god Khnum, but when Sadie picks up the scroll, it lights up on fire and activates every reservoir of magic spells including an Egyptian griffin. As Carter and Sadie distract the griffin, Walt opens a window using an Egyptian spell so they can escape, but accidentally activates one of the museums magic spells and releases the “seven arrows of Sekhmet”. These plague spirits rage out of control and Jaz decides to trap the goddess’ power and banish the spirits back into the Duat, despite her low magical energy, and as a result she is left in a coma. Before she goes in a coma she gives Sadie a wax statue to heal Carter in case he gets hurt. Before the spirits goes back in the Duat, one of the spirits is possessed by Apophis and slows down time to tell Carter to stop his quest or Zia Rashid will die where she is entombed, and shortly afterwards, Carter manages to tame the griffin because Carter was a former host of Horus who the griffin serves, so the griffin helps them escape from the museum.

When Carter, Sadie, Walt, and Jaz arrive back at the Brooklyn House, Sadie goes to her room so she can get some rest. Sadie falls asleep and her ba (soul) escapes her body and takes her to the Hall of Ages, in the House of Life. While in there, she sees a suspicious magician, Vladimir, discuss with Desjardins about attacking the Brooklyn House. Desjardins agrees to attack the Brooklyn House because he wants to put Carter and Sadie Kane into exile for following the path of the gods which has been forbidden. After Sadie gets up, she tells her Uncle Amos about the situation and Uncle Amos tells her to come to the veranda in 20 minutes while he gathers up the twenty-first Nome. After everyone is gathered at the Veranda, Sadie tells everyone what she saw in her dream and Amos tells everyone to prepare. However, it is Sadie’s 13th birthday and she wants to go to visit her old home and friends back in London, but when she goes inside her old home she hears a voice that doesn't sound human.

On the night Carter came back from the Brooklyn museum, Horus, the god of war, shows Carter that Apophis’ prison only has a few scarab shells and still have enough strength to keep Apophis locked up, but the prison will soon be weakened, enough for Apophis to break free on the day of the equinox. On the next day, while Carter is teaching magic to some younger magicians, including Walt, a statue of Ra turns into a three-headed winged snake made of scarab shells that have the voice of Apophis. Carter tells his trainees to attack the monster and when Walt touches the monster, he somehow turns it to dust. Carter goes to his room to get his mind off of what had just happened in the training room by trying to see where Zia Rashid was in a scrying bowl. While he is doing this, Walt comes into his room to discuss how Walt had turned the statue of Ra to dust. While they are talking, Carter looks into his scrying bowl and sees an image of their grandparent's front door was broken to pieces and tells Walt that they need to go to London.

Sadie finds out that her grandparents have been forced to host Nekhbet, the vulture goddess, and Babi, the baboon god. The two gods chase and try to hunt down Sadie and her friends, Liz and Emma. While Sadie and her friends are running for their lives, Sadie has a short conversation with Anubis who gives her a netjeri knife, a knife for opening of the mouth ceremony, and tells her that the second part of the Book of Ra is in Vladimir’s palace in Russia. Sadie and her friends manage to escape on a train to buy some time. When they get off the train, Sadie manages to hold off the two gods for a few minutes. Then Sadie and her friends go to find a god named Bes, the dwarf god, at Waterloo Bridge. Bes and Sadie manage to fight off the two gods and Carter and Walt show up shortly after. Bes drives around London to find an Egyptian artifact that they can use as a portal to go to Russia. When Bes opens the portal he insists for Walt to stay behind for reasons that Sadie and Carter do not know. Bes drives the limo through the portal and takes them to Vladimir’s palace.

When Carter and Sadie get inside Vladimir’s palace they find that the second part of the book of Ra is in Vladimir’s desk. While they are trying to get the scroll, they find out that Vladimir is working for Apophis and helping him escape his prison. They get the scroll from the desk but are attacked by Menshikov’s two-headed snake, tjesu heru. Sadie and Carter are chased by the snake outside of the palace. Sadie manages to destroy the snake but not before it bites Carter. Then they meet Bes at a bridge where Set tells the last scroll is in Bahariya and the location of Zia in exchange for his secret name back. Sadie gives back Set his name and Bes, Carter, and Sadie use an underwater portal to escape Vladimir’s pursuers who were trying to catch them. When Sadie wakes up after fainting from using the underwater portal, she manages to save Carter by learning his secret name and using the amulet Jaz gave to her. Then Sadie tells Carter that Zia’s tomb is in a place called Makan al-Ramal al-Hamrah (The Red Sands). Sadie calls upon Walt and they make a plan that Walt and Sadie will go find the last scroll and Bes and Carter will go find Zia.

Carter and Bes ask some men to take them to The Place of The Red Sands. When they get there, they are attacked by water demons. Carter and Bes defeat the demons and because the river is gone they can now see a tomb that has an entrance and has the name Zia carved in hieroglyphics. When Carter goes into the temple he finds Zia Rashid holding the flail and crook of Ra. When Zia awakes she collapses on the ground because she was being used as a host by the goddess, Nepthys. Soon Menshikov and Michel Desjardins arrive and Carter uses the weapons of Ra to defeat Menshikov, but Menshikov attempts to put a curse on him while Bes is trapped in a cage.

While Sadie and Walt are walking in the desert, Walt tells Sadie that he has a curse that will cause him to die at a young age. While they are talking, a cat that has the voice of Bast, the cat goddess and a friend of Sadie, appears in front of them and tells them that Apophis is gathering powerful minions to help him break free on the day Ra is awaken. As they, Sadie and Walt walk farther, they see a water tower that Sadie explodes and it reveals the entrance of the tomb where they will find the last scroll. When they enter the tomb, they meet a Roman ghost, Appius Cladius Iratus (Mad Claude), who helps them find the room where the last scroll is and in return he asked for Sadie to use the netjeri knife to help him and the other souls of the mummies’ in the tomb to go to the afterlife. However, she says that the knife is for reviving Ra and Mad Claude gets angry. Mad Claude awakens the other mummies in the tomb to kill Sadie and Walt, but Ptah, the god of creation and technology, sends in rats to save them and creates a portal to Carter and Bes. When Sadie and Walt jump through the portal the portal opens under Bes’ cage that destroys it and Bes scares Menshikov and Desjardins away. Later that day, Carter falls asleep on a bus and his ba takes him to the hall of ages. Carter sees Menshikov talking to Desjardins using an army to attack the Brooklyn House, but Desjardins seems unsure about this for the first time but agrees to do it. When Carter gets up he tells everyone what he saw. They make a plan that Sadie and Carter will go and find Ra in the Duat and Walt and Zia will defend the Brooklyn House. When they enter the Duat they need to sail through the 12 houses, each representing an hour of the night, to fully reawaken Ra.

Sadie and Carter sail through the first three houses and when they reach the Fourth House, they find Khum, the first aspect of Ra. They need to read his secret name to pass and they succeed by using the Book of Ra. Then they enter the fourth house, the House of Rest, where they find Bes who tells them that they need to find the second aspect of Ra who is living in “Sunny Acres Assisted-Living Community.” When Carter, Sadie, and Bes enter the fourth house and enter the “Sunny Acres Assisted-Living Community,” they meet the hippo goddess, Tawaret, who helps them find the second aspect of Ra. After four hours of searching, they eventually find the second aspect of Ra who is old and weak and Sadie revives him by using the netjeri knife but, he still looks weak, senile, and acts like a madman (throwing ice cream bananas into the air, and talking about weasels and zebras). Although they have found the second aspect of Ra, they are already too late because the Eighth House can only be entered at 8’O clock. Carter, Sadie, and Bes travel to the Seventh House to find Khonsu, the moon god who can add more time into the night, but they have to gamble for it in a game called senet. If they lose a round, their identity (Ren) will be gone along with their memories and they have to win three out of four games. They win the first, third, and fourth rounds, but lose the second, causing Bes to lose his identity. Then Sadie, Carter, and Ra travel in the boat towards the Twelfth House where Vladimir Menshikov, who is possessed by Apophis, is waiting for them.

While Sadie and Carter are fighting Vladimir, Desjardins suddenly appears behind Carter and Sadie who fights with them to their surprise. Sadie quickly reads the spell of Ra’s third aspect, Khepri, from the book of Ra and a golden scarab appears in Sadie’s hands. However, this releases Apophis from his prison, but Desjardins quickly banishes Apophis and dies from using too much magic. Before Desjardins dies, he warns them that Apophis will return soon. When Sadie and Carter return the Brooklyn House, they were able to help and win against the enemies because they have the power of Ra with them. Because the power of Ra represented new life, it helped Jaz wake up from her coma. Soon after, Ra’s boat goes into the sky with Bast and she tells Carter and Sadie that she is going into the heavens to meet with the other gods. When Bast comes back from the heavens she brings Carter and Sadie to the heavens so they can go on the same journey Ra did with the gods a thousand years ago. As they go on their journey they go see Bes who has no memories and doesn’t know who he is. Although Sadie and Carter don’t know how to heal Bes, they promise that they will. The new chief lector of the house of life is Amos because he is the second most powerful magician next to Desjardins. He left the Brooklyn house with Zia to manage the house of life.

Characters

• Bast's mom she is the loyal Egyptian cat god of Ra and Sadie's and Carter's protector that fought Aphophis.
• Carter Kane: He is fifteen and was a host of Horus. Since he was eight, after his mother died, he traveled with his father, Julius Kane.
• Sadie Kane: She turns thirteen in this book and was a host of Isis. She loves gum and has lived with her grandparents since the age of six. She has a stubborn and strong-minded personality, but is also caring and kind. She had a cat named Muffin later revealed to be Bast, the Egyptian goddess of cats, who protected Sadie in her cat form her until Sadie found out about the Egyptian gods. She prefers to be the noisiest thing in her environment. She also has a double crush on Anubis and Walt. Although having an English accent in the first book, after living in the States for a few months, starts to use an American accent
• Amos Kane: Their uncle who is a very powerful magician, and is also a jazz musician. He used to be the unwilling host of Set.
• Walt: One of Sadie and Carter's initiates at the Brooklyn House, which is a part of the House of Life that urges magicians to return to the path of the gods to battle Apophis. Walt is a descendent of the pharaoh, Akhenaten who exiled all the gods except the god Aten. Therefore, Akhenaten's descendents have been cursed and the more they practice magic, the faster it progresses. The curse causes its victims to die at a very young age. Walt suffers from this curse, and will die soon, unless he receives the cure Vladimir may hold. Sadie is in love with him.
• Jaz: Jasmine, a cheerleader from Nashville, Tennessee, she is one of Sadie and Carter's initiates at the Brooklyn House. She is a healer. She accompanies them to the Brooklyn Museum to find a scroll from the Book of Ra, but falls into a coma after stopping the Arrows of Sekhmet when they were accidentally unleashed. She also gives Sadie a statue that is used to help save Carter from the bite of the monster they met in Russia. She comes out of her coma just in time to fight some magicians attacking the Brooklyn House.
• Vladamir Menshikov: Grandson of the great General of the Russian Empire, Alexander Menshikov 18th. His nome is Russia. He has been (willingly) enslaved by Apophis. He tries to become the host of the Apophis to release him and let chaos rule for ever. Sadie and Carter go on a quest to stop him.
• Zia Rashid, a fourteen-year-old girl who is a fire specialist in House of Life. She was hosting Nephthys, a water goddess, which can be fatal for a fire specialist. The former Chief Lector Iskandar hid her in the Nile to protect her from Apophis and replaced her with a shabti to cover her absence in the first book. In this book the real Zia is finally awakened by Carter. It is hinted that she may play a major part in destroying Apophis in the last book.
• Bes, the dwarf god, although very ugly, he has a fun, brave and great personality, he helps Carter and Sadie in their quest until his 'ren' is devoured by the moon god, Khonsu. Although Tawaret loved him, he preferred Bast who did not know of his true feelings and treated him as a brother.
• Anubis, the Egyptian god of death and funerals, Sadie Kane appears to have a double crush on him and Walt. He gives Sadie some information about where the second scroll in and gives her a netjeri knife to "the opening of the mouth" during the Babi and Nekhbet chase.
• Ra, the Egyptian god of the sun. King of all gods, and forced to exile a long time ago by Isis, the goddess of magic. He is senile in this book, as he had been essentially 'dead' for a long time. Carter and Sadie revive him in the Duat so he can stop Apophis from swallowing the sun and taking over the world.

References to other books

While looking at the Empire State Building, Carter briefly thinks he sees a black winged horse. The Empire State building is identified as the current home of the Olympian gods of ancient Greece in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson novels. The winged horse could very well be Blackjack from the Percy Jackson series.

Release

Rick Riordan announced that there will be a sequel coming out on May 3, 2011. The title, The Serpent's Shadow, was announced in a blog post by Riordan on January 13, 2011. The book was released worldwide on May 3, 2011. A preview was published in USA Today.

The Serpent's Shadow debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List on May 22 at #1, and has held that spot as of the week of June 12.

Critical reception

Kirkus Reviews reviewed the episode positively, writing, "This volume begins so thunderously that the narrators seem more like frenetic tour guides than friendly companions, pulling readers along at a breakneck pace. Riordan supplies them with his trademark wisecracking voice and explores themes of power, responsibility, family, love and loyalty as the tale hurtles along."

External links

• Official USA website for series
• Official UK website for series