Synopsis

AD 1099. Sir Aylwin d'Ashinvaine rides out into the desert, away from Jerusalem, tormented by guilt about what his fellow Crusaders had done on taking the city. Desiring penance, the knight allows himself to be taken as a captive. Fate delivers him to Babylon where he becomes entangled with the unholy forces that have manipulated his path all along.

D'Ashinvaine falls under the spell of the dark Queen Culdara and soon discovers the evil she is capable of. He makes a bid to escape Culdara and to rescue the Abysinian slave girl Mentuab, but he is already in Culdara's snare- tainted with her blood. Inadvertently he initiates Mentuab into undeath, and she is reborn sharing his curse.
D'Ashinvaine returns despairingly to Culdara, who imparts ancient secrets stemming from her mortal life as the daughter of Pharaoh and bride of Solomon. She has been thus accursed ever since she attempted to steal the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple, so that it's powers might serve the gods of Egypt. Instead she incurred the wrath of the God of Israel, who condemned her to eternal life and thirst for blood.
Culdara sets D'Ashinvaine and his companion Sir Girvas (now made creatures such a she) a quest for the greatest holy relic of antiquity, the source of the bloody curse and the one possibility of redemption. The place to start the search is in Crusader Jerusalem- within the mount no longer defended by the Muslims.

The quest leads D'Ashinvaine to the heart of Solomon's Temple, amid a new Order of Knights who are not what they seem. The mystery deepens and more revelations follow, shattering the vestiges of his faith. The unfolding odyssey takes D'Ashinvaine and his companions through the battles of renewed crusades, into Egypt and down the Nile into the lost civilization of Ethiopia- the land of the Queen of Sheba, where the fate of the relic hinges on a final mighty battle.

This is an epic story of horror, mystery, romance and adventure. It is the debut novel from the author of 'The Rise and Fall of the Knights Templar.'