AustLit

The Chamber of Eternity of Egypt is said to contain a hieroglyphic chart of the future, the meaning of life and the secrets of immortality. For thousands of years it has been sought by emperors, kings, caliphs and popes, but its site is fiercely guarded; its existence defended by preposterous rumours and outright lies. By the 1790s the chamber has become a treasure more prized and elusive than even the Holy Grail. Learning of the mysterious vault, in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte launches an ambitious expedition to Egypt to locate it. And one year later, in the heart of the Great Pyramid, the chamber's secrets are revealed to him by a mysterious red-robed mystic - the so-called 'Red Man'. Buoyed by revelations of a phenomenal destiny, Napoleon returns to Paris and becomes Emperor of France. But as his fame escalates he begins to question the veracity of the meeting in the Great Pyramid, the accuracy of the chamber's prophecies, the existence of the Red Man - and his sanity. Forty years later it is Queen Victoria's turn to become infatuated with the legend. She knows that since Napoleon's day a few are said to have discovered the great vault, but for some inexplicable reason they seem determined to withhold its extraordinary secrets. So Alexander Rhind, a modest young Scottish archaeologist, is recruited to infiltrate the 'Brotherhood of Eternity'. But when Rhind himself becomes seduced by the mystery of the chamber, he too is compelled to undertake his own search for it, drawn by the possibility that there are answers among the ruins, both grand and intimate, which can only be discerned in person. With its cast of emperors, popes, queens, generals, sheikhs, artists and archaeologists - every one of them real - THE EMPIRE OF ETERNITY is a brilliant and haunting novel about the mysteries of the great tombs, the hidden secrets of the gods and man's desire to possess them at all costs. Its story will stay in your mind long after you have turned the final page. (Publisher's blurb)