There is more than one history of the world. Before science defined the modern a
ge, other powers, wondrous and magical, once governed the universe, their lore p
erfected within a lost capital of hieroglyphs, wizard-kings, and fabulous monume
nts. In the 1970s, a historian named Pierce Moffett moves to the New England cou
ntryside to write a book about Aegypt, driven by an idea he dare not believe: th
at the physical laws of the universe once changed and may change again.
Yet t
he notion is not his alone. Something waits at the locked estate of Fellowes Kra
ft, author of romances about Will Shakespeare and Giordano Bruno and Dr. John De
e, something for which Pierce and those near him have long sought without knowin
g it: a key, perhaps, to Aegypt...