The Wizard of 4th Street

Simon Hawke

ISBN 10: 0445203021 / ISBN 13: 9780445203020

Published by Questar/Popular Library, New York, NY, 1987

Wyrdrune is a student wizard with a penchant for botching spells when he meets Kira, a street-wise cutie, at an auction for the mysterious and powerful Euphrates rune stones. But he has no idea, when he tries to steal them, that the stones have already chosen him for a great adventure. From the author of the popular Timewars series.

First came the Collapse, when the fossil fuels ran out and the world fell into a new dark age. Then, at the height of all the chaos, the legendary Merlin awoke from his long slumber and set the world on a path to using magic as the new energy base. Some fifty years later, society is based on magic use and Wyrdrune, a young New York City warlock kicked out of school for casting spells without a license, reads about an auction of artifacts unearthed in the Euphrates Valley. Among the items up for auction are some enchanted runestones of "unknown properties." Hoping for a score, Wyrdrune plots to steal them. But at the same time, a streetwise cat burglar known as Kira also tries to steal the stones and the two barely manage to escape together with the loot. Neither of them has much use for the other, but all they have to do is fence the stones and split the take. The only problem is, the runestones wont stay fenced. They keep magically returning to the thieves.Now, hunted by the authorities, by thugs employed by dealers in stolen goods who think the pair have cheated them, and by a mysterious international hitman known only by the name of Morpheus, the thieves have only one place left to run -- the home of Wyrdrunes old professor, Merlin, who is the first to realize that the runestones are a key to an immensely powerful and dangerous spell dating back before the dawn of human civilization. And as if that were not frightening enough, the runestones are alive....