The stone in the skull

Summary/Review: 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. They are walking into a dynastice struggle between the rulers of the shattered pieces of a once great Empire. The young queen of Sarathai must choose a husband - a husband who will become the master of her kingdom. The leading suitor is her repulsive cousin, who believes he is destined to sit on the Peacock Throne - if not through marriage then by conquest. Can sorcery and war in the hands of the Gage and a dead man reunite an Empire? -- amazon.com