Two thieves and con-men hired to recover a lost relic in the Mongolian highlands find themselves caught in the middle of a battle of modern-day magicians for an ancient artifact that restores magic to the world.

SYNOPSIS:

After a highly orchestrated and brilliantly executed theft that fails utterly, BEN BELSON and DMITRI ROMANOFF, holed up in Mongolia as the last place on earth where they’re not wanted men, are hired by the mysterious ARIADNE to recover a lost family treasure called the Clockwork from a temple in the Mongolian highlands. They figure she’s phony as a three-dollar bill but decide to play along to do what they do best – steal from thieves.

Their decision doesn’t sit well with the barmaid GERIEL, who traded in life with her nomadic tribe for the bright lights of Uulanbaatar. She’s soft on Ben and doesn’t want to give Ariadne a chance to wrap her coils around him. But off they go without her.

For a guide, Ariadne brings along her father BELISARIUS, an ancient opium addict. But he proves invaluable when the temple presents a series of magical tests, for Belisarius is a magician, though long retired, and even the ever-doubting Ben is forced to admit that magic really is real. Dmitri retrieves the Clockwork while Ben finds an ancient blade made of the same strange metal as the Clockwork - a blade that no one else can hold, as if it had somehow chosen Ben.

Dmitri discovers to his dismay that he has contracted a magical curse that is turning him into the same kind of metal as the Clockwork and the blade. They are attacked by WU, another magician, and rescued by Geriel, who's been tracking them this entire time thanks to her wilderness skills.

In the face of all these magical events, Ben and Dmitri demand answers from Ariadne. She admits she lied about the Clockwork -- it's not a family treasure, it's an artifact of vast magical power, and now that it's resurfaced, magic spells that have been useless for millennia are suddenly working again. Even Dmitri finds he has magical ability, though erratic and completely untrained. Ariadne plans to bring the Clockwork to LEONIDAS, the most powerful of the world's surviving magicians, who literally has the power of life and death over her, but light-fingered Dmitri has no intention of letting Ariadne walk off with it. He lifts it off her but immediately loses it to a thieving street urchin.

With the help of a talking brass head, the magical equivalent of a hardware memory backup, Ben and Dmitri bring Belisarius back to his senses and get the 411 about the Clockwork. 3,000 years ago, when Belisarius was a powerful sorcerer, he created it and the sword to curb the power of magicians but instead triggered an all-out war as everyone sought its power for themselves. He was forced to bury it away and with it, most of the world’s magic. But now that it’s out in the open again, the few surviving magicians in the world are regaining their power and will do anything to take the Clockwork. He tells Ben and Dmitri that they must not let it fall into the hands of Leonidas, and that only the Clockwork can save Dmitri from the curse.

In the climactic final battle, Ben and Dmitri defeat Leonidas - and Wu and the other gathered magicians - with the help of Belisarius, and Dmitri's one reliable magic spell, and a key assist from Geriel's nomadic tribe. Dmitri dies from the curse but Ben brings him back to life with the power of the Clockwork - thus ending their long-running dispute over which of them has saved the other's life more often. Ben chooses Ariadne over Geriel but finds that neither woman will take him now. Even the sword deserts him, switching its allegiance to Geriel, so Ben and Dmitri ride off into the sunset together – until Destiny has another use for them.