The Jewel of Bas

Ciaran is a wandering harper and a thief, and Mouse is a branded thief with a temper and a good throwing arm. Between them they have never had a full belly or a roof over their heads.

Camped above the Forbidden Plains, they watch a shadow spread across the sky from Ben Beatha, the Mountain of Life, and the floating sunballs go out one by one. All along the border, whole towns have been vanishing. Then grey beasts with jewel-tipped wands come for them too, and drive them in a slave line toward the mountain where, the old stories say, Bas the Immortal rules with his androids and the Stone of Destiny. Ciaran has always wondered whether that story was true.