title: The History of the Runestaff : The Jewel in the Skull', 'the Mad God's Amulet', 'the Sword of the Dawn', 'the Runestaff (Fantasy Masterworks)
author:  Michael Moorcock 
description: The earth has grown old, her landscapes mellow, her people lost in abrooding dream. It is an age of antique cities, scientific sorcery, crystal machines, great flying engines with mechanical wings. And the armies of the Dark Empire are relentlessly taking over the once-peaceful city states, ravaging and destroying as they advance, mile by brutal mile ...The Dark Empire has humiliated and multilated Dorian Hawkmoon, but it cannot rob him of his two consuming passions: his love for Yisselda of Brass and his hatred of her ruthless suitor Meliadus. But before he can defy the Dark Empire and win the beauteous Yisselda, he must seek the Runestaff, a quest that will send him into barbaric wonder and perverse evil ...and only if he succeeds will her avert the doom of all the world ...
zlib_text: Book 1 in The Runestaff series Jewel in The Skull By Michael Moorcock
  
  Contents BOOK ONE
  
  1\. Count Brass 7
  
  2\. Yisselda and Bowgentle 14
  
  3\. Baron Meliadus 21
  
  4\. The Fight at Castle Brass 31
  
  BOOK TWO
  
  1\. Dorian Hawkmoon 40
  
  2\. The Bargain 45
  
  3\. The Black Jewel 58
  
  4\. Journey to Castle Brass 63
  
  5\. The Awakening of Hawkmoon 72
  
  6\. The Battle of the Kamarg 91
  
  BOOK THREE
  
  1\. Oladahn 119
  
  2\. The Caravan of Agonosvos 125
  
  3\. The Warrior in Jet and Cold 134
  
  4\. Malagigi 138
  
  5\. The Black Jewel's Life 145
  
  6\. Servant of the Runestaff 151
  
  BOOK ONE
  
  CHAPTER ONE
  
  COUNT BRASS
  
  Then the Earth grew old, its landscapes mellowing and showing signs of age,
  its ways becoming whim- sical and strange in the manner of a man in his last
  years.
  
  —The High History of the Runestaff
  
  COUNT BRASS, Lord Guardian of the Kamarg, rode out on a horned horse one
  morning to inspect his territories. He rode until he came to a little hill, on
  the top of which stood a ruin of immense age. It was the 