The Stone in the Skull

<span><i>The Stone in the Skull</i>,
the first volume in her new trilogy, takes readers over the dangerous
mountain passes of the Steles of the Sky and south into the Lotus
Kingdoms.<br><br>The Gage is a brass automaton created by a wizard of
Messaline around the core of a human being. His wizard is long dead, and
he works as a mercenary. He is carrying a message from a the most
powerful sorcerer of Messaline to the Rajni of the Lotus Kingdom. With
him is The Dead Man, a bitter survivor of the body guard of the deposed
Uthman Caliphate, protecting the message and the Gage. They are friends,
of a peculiar sort.<br><br>They are walking into a dynastic war between the rulers of the shattered bits of a once great Empire.</span>