The sequel to The Stone in the Skull takes the Gage into desert lands under a deadly sky to answer the riddle of the Stone in the Skull. The Gage and the Dead Man brought a message from the greatest wizard of Messaline to the ruling queen of Sarathai, one of the Lotus Kingdoms. But the message was a riddle, and the Lotus Kingdoms are at war. Elizabeth Bear created her secondary world of the Eternal Sky in her highly praised novel The Range of Ghosts and its sequels. She continued it the first book of the Lotus Kingdoms, The Stone in the Skull.