The Forty Thieves II (Book)

You see a book.

It weighs 13.00 oz.

## Content

> The Forty Thieves II
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> But the Djinn with soft but weighted words told her that he knew of her want and could surely entrust her with what she needed to sate it, on his word. Marjana detected a sincerity and gave a nod that deigned at least to hear him out. So the Djinn told her of his intentions, his quest, there was a princess who lived in the palace that he thought more lovely and more beautiful than he had seen of any mortal in centuries. He wanted to have her but was shackled by the untold law of the Djinn that for a Djinn to have a human, the human must always be the one who approaches first with desire, otherwise such trysts are forbidden. And so he wished Marjana to simply deliver a letter of poetry that would surely place her in the mood of want so when the Djinn presented himself she would be taken with him at first sight. Marjana told him that is fine for him but it does nothing for her -- at this moment the Djinn entered her mind and showed her an image of the very man she sought. Marjana came out from this incursion and saw the Djinn staring at her knowingly and she with a look herself accepted the deal.
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> Marjana knew the city well and how to maneuver through it. She crept toward the rear of the palace being sure to not be detected by any guard, silently crossed the moat surrounding the palace, and then scaled the alabaster wall which let her descend into the palace's gardens. The princess was residing under a pear tree with many rugs playing with her kitten, of black hair with tall, thin ears. Marjana approached the princess as if she had come from the entrance to the garden and said she was a courier for the literary society of the city who had crafted a poem in her honor. The princess was naturally flattered and thanked Marjana and bid her away.
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> Marjana returned to the Djinn and told him all was taken care of and that if he went to the one he desired soon she would surely be found agreeable to his design. The Djinn was happy but soon became graver and serious "Now for your part..." he said. "You want to take revenge upon your father who does not deserve the name, very well. Here is a dagger, take it, and look on it closely. For this dagger I have fashioned for you; when you hold it it will draw your hand naturally to whom you seek to use it on. And finally when close it will soften the sounds of your steps so you may creep to the throat of your victim without any betrayal of your intent." Marjana held the dagger in her hand and indescribably felt a kind of pull, her hand being slowly guided to a certain direction.
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> The Djinn bid her "Good luck..." and disappeared before her, surely off to his affair on the princess. Marjana meanwhile saw that the dagger pointed east outside the city into the Kha'labal and so her mind became set at once. She went home where she grabbed a cloak for a cold desert night and some provisions of cheese, grapes, and dates which she stuffed in her small bag and thus she was off.
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> After many hours Marjana had long exited the city and was on foot in the desert , a risk indeed, though precise her mind was certainly not rational, it being bent on nothing her purpose: the dagger and its endless compass. It was at night when the air grew cold that the dagger suddenly started to point down towards the sand rather than along the desert, it was here that the sand did seem odd enough as if it had been touched or marked recently. Marjana dug briefly and then uncovered a kind of tunnel that descended down into the earth. Before long she found herself in a giant cavern system filled to brim with sand and echoes of what lay below. The dagger had resumed in its compass and so Marjana followed. Up banks and down dunes of sand and rock left and right twisting and turning the dagger sped Marjana until before long her eyes detected the glow of firelight and the sound of speech. She crept quietly towards it and stationed herself at some distance away, as if when a person is the size of a fig to the eye. There was a kind of encampment against a giant rock-face which had the firelight dance in tongues upon it, along the end of the face in a corner there was heaps of treasure and gold. Suddenly it dawned on Marjana that this was no random assemblage of bandits, these were the The Forty, and no sooner did it dawn that her father was one of these men.
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## Location

In a crate inside Ankrahmun apothecary library.