Broken Crescent — S. Andrew Swann

MAGES' PAWN....

Nate Black was a college student with a plan for his future. He was going to work in computer security. After all, when he'd been in his mid-teens he cracked pretty much every security system on-line. And he'd made sure to stop his illicit activities while he was still underage, so he would be safe from prosecution even if anyone ever tracked down the true identity of the hacker known as Azrael.

But suddenly all Nate's plans came crashing down around him when he received an e-mail from an unknown source -- a sender who knew that Nate was the legendary hacker Azrael! When a stranger turned up at his door, Nate assumed the Feds had tracked him down, and, panicking, he made a run for it...a run that took him first into a mysterious void and then into a pre-tech land where humans ruled over an alien race, and true power lay with the elite Scholars who could work magic.

Nate didn't know who had brought him here or why, but he did know that his life would be forfeit unless he could discover what his captors wanted from him....