The Sandalwood Box (Dragon series Book Three)

By Pamela Lamb

The bad fairy Sisygambis lives in a sandalwood box on the dressing table of the princess Roxane. Princess Roxane's dressing table is set in the window of her bedroom high up in her father's fortress. The fortress is in a lonely valley on the very edge of the ancient Persian empire. So how does the sandalwood box end up in Briony's house in 21st century Brisbane? And how does Miranda end up inside the box? It is up to Briony to rescue her. Again! After all her adventures, going into the sandalwood box is just about the scariest thing Briony has ever done.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pamela Lamb
• Release date: Feb 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9780987221834

Pamela Lamb

Must ... stop ... writing ... Sometimes I really wish I could. It gets in the way of real life. At the weekend I prefer sitting in front of the computer with my pretend friends instead of going out with my real ones. It destroys my sleep. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night knowing I need to change one word in the paragraph I wrote the evening before - and I have to get up and do it. And it makes me a dangerous driver. Get me on the road and my characters start having conversations in my head. And why are they so much more lucid and logical then than when I attempt to scribble them down at the next red light?I write because I love language. I love English with its collection of mongrel words. It's like an enormous button box where you can pick between half a dozen languages each one of which holds the history of Britain at its heart. I love the shape of words and the sound of them. I love what you can make them do on the page. And what you can make them do to your readers. Laugh, cry, stay up at night.What I like best is having a conversation with a reader about one of my characters. The reader talks about my character as if s/he is a real person. Discusses the character's motivation. Speculates about what the character did after the end of the novel. And I think, but it's all made up. Every bit of it. Out of my head.Then I know it is all worthwhile. Bringing characters alive to walk on the page. Creating a world for them to live in. Immersing myself in the shape and rhythm of a novel in the making. It's exciting stuff. And it's even more exciting when the book is finished and I hand it over to you, the reader. Enjoy!

Book preview

The Sandalwood Box

Pamela Lamb

Published by Agneau Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Pamela Lamb

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter 1

The bad fairy Sisygambis lived in a sandalwood box on the dressing table of the princess Roxane. The box was carved in fantastic patterns inlaid with ebony and mother-of-pearl. It had been very beautiful once upon a time. Now it was a bit battered around the edges and some of the inlay had fallen out.

Princess Roxane’s dressing table was set in the window of her bedroom high up in her father’s fortress. From her bedroom window Roxane could see tall, snow-capped mountains and wide, stony valleys. Sometimes a bird would fly past Roxane’s window on its way to somewhere else. Otherwise days would go by and there would be nothing to see. Which is not really surprising because the fortress was on the very edge of the vast Persian empire ruled by the Emperor Darius whose mother was also called Sisygambis.

In Persia, a fairy is called a peri but Sisygambis didn’t care what people called her. She was bored. She wanted excitement and adventure. And she wasn’t going to find it stuck in a fortress in the middle of nowhere. What she needed was someone to come along and take her away.

‘Okay, have I got everything?’

Briony was standing in the middle of her bedroom floor. It was a Friday evening. She was just about to make a wish that would take her to find her grandfather. She had never met her grandfather and nobody really knew where he was. The only clues were the long spear hanging up in the hall and the old crimson goblets in the china cabinet that Briony had never been allowed to touch. There was also a photograph on Granny’s bedside table. It showed Briony’s grandparents dressed as a soldier and a nurse. So maybe Briony and Gryff were going to end up in the middle of a war.

‘Food, drink, clothes,’ said Gryff. ‘That’s what you usually take.’

Gryff was getting impatient. The humans – Briony and Lisa, Mum and Granny, Henry and Alice - had been talking about this adventure for days. Now Briony was finally packed and dressed. So why couldn’t they just go?

‘Jumping castles,’ he thought to himself, ‘I could have gone there and back twice over in the time it’s taken Briony to get started.’

‘I might just take my mobile phone.’ Briony grabbed it off her bedside table and tucked it into her backpack. ‘Now, I think we’re ready.’

She slung her backpack onto her shoulders and bent down to pick up the little dragon from the bed. From his favourite place in the crook of her arm, Gryff gazed up at Briony with his froggy eyes.

‘Ready now?’

‘I think so.’

‘Got your wish ready?’

‘I think I know how to wish by now,’ said Briony. ‘Isn’t that the whole point of us being allowed to go on this adventure?’

But in reality Briony had been so busy packing all the things her mother thought she might need on the trip, she hadn’t had much time to think about her wish. Her mind raced. What did she really want? To find her grandfather and bring him back to Granny? Or to go back to ancient times and see where they first met?

Granny said there was an army that attacked a steep fortress. What was the word she’d used? Impregnable. That meant nobody had been able to defeat the people who lived in the fortress. And Granny said there were dragons there, too. ‘That’s the place I want to go,’ thought Briony.

She gripped Gryff tightly. ‘I wish to go to where Granny and my grandfather first met.’

The portal sighed open. The sigh seemed to be louder and longer than usual. Briony didn’t take any notice. She just peered through the widening gap to see what was on the other side. A rough stone wall. A pretty faded rug. Embroidered bed covers hanging down. Dust under the bed. Briony felt the invisible force shove her through. The portal sighed shut.

They seemed to be in the corner of a small, cold bedroom. Briony knelt up and peered over the bed. On the opposite wall there was a tall, narrow window showing a glimpse of dull grey sky. In front of the window was a table holding a battered wooden box and a few small bottles made of coloured glass. Sitting at the table was a girl who was brushing her long brown hair and humming quietly to herself. Freezing cold air came in through the window, which had no glass in it.

The girl stopped brushing her hair. She laid the brush down on the table. Then she turned around. She and Briony stared at each other for a long moment. Briony remembered the time she and Gryff had gone into the princess Leonie’s garden back in the olden days. Leonie’s nurse had yelled for the guards to come and arrest them. Perhaps that was going to happen again.

But the girl by the window smiled. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Roxane. Who are you?’

Briony stood up and moved around the bed.

‘My name is Briony and this is Gryff.’

‘A baby dragon. How cute!’ Roxane reached out her arms. ‘May I hold him?’

‘Is that all right with you?’ Briony asked Gryff.

‘I’d s-s-sooner get into that bed, if it’s all the same with you,’ Gryff said to the girl. ‘I am a c-c-creature of the sun. I d-d-don’t like being cold.’

Briony could feel the little dragon shivering in her arms. His bright green scales had turned a dull blue colour. She remembered the morning she had pulled Gryff out of the creek at the bottom of her garden. He had turned a funny colour then, too. She had put him in the middle of her bed and piled the covers on top of him. Back then Briony didn’t know dragons were full of fire and needed the sun to keep their fires going. Or, if there wasn’t any sun, somewhere really warm like a bed, or an electric heater, or a bonfire.

‘Do you mind?’

Roxane shook her head.

Briony turned to the bed and began pulling back the covers. There was an embroidered silk bedspread, then a thick feather quilt, then a couple of soft woollen blankets, then a plain white sheet. Briony tucked Gryff in, making sure his long snout was sticking out of all the covers. In a while he would begin to blow smoke rings and she didn’t want him to set the bed on fire.

Briony straightened up and spoke to the other girl. ‘Thanks for that. He should be feeling better soon.’

Through the window behind Roxane’s head Briony could see thick white flakes beginning to drift down from the grey sky.

‘Is that snow? I’ve never seen snow before.’

Briony went to the window and leaned out. She looked up and saw the high, snow-capped mountains. She looked down – a long, long way down – and saw a rocky plain with a wide, shallow river running through the middle. A narrow dirt road wound along the valley floor, crossing the river by a stone bridge. There were no trees, no grass and no sign of life anywhere.

She turned to Roxane. ‘Where is this place?’ Then she had another thought. ‘You didn’t seem very surprised to see us just now.’

‘I’m just glad to have someone to