The Staff and the Stone — John Salonia

A DEMON'S WRATH AND A SORCEROUS JEWEL His soul was doomed to fall into the clutches of the Lord of Demons. Trapped between two rival arch-wizards and two feuding sword-women, sorcerer's apprentice Albaric Corwen must undertake a desperate expedition to the lethal, long-abandoned corpse-city of Snerankhu. There, in the demon-haunted ruins of the fallen empire of the dark goddess Night, Albaric hopes to locate the greatest prize of sorcery: the legendary Philosopher's Stone. Without it, he is damned. But to find it, he must plunge into the black center of a living hell on earth, and steal the Stone from the lap of the Dark Goddess herself . . .