Stone of Sovereignty — Hugh Malafry

Who are the Shapers? What is their will of us?

In the First Time, the kingdoms of earth and the realms of light were one. Wise in the ways of the Otherworld, the Na-Akhu-El Sages of the Motherland tended the ongoing creation in the earth: Masters of the Four Forces and the cycles of creation, they shaped the pattern of things to come before they took form, and kept the balance of life in the worlds.
But the Kingdom of the Sun fell, and a catastrophic dark age ensued, obscuring the way of the Makers. In the cataclysmic destruction of the world that was, the way of the Otherworld and of the First Time was lost, and Man forgot the realms of light.
Nevertheless, veiled by the commonplace, a vestige of the Na-Akhu-El Sages survives, and subtly intervenes at crucial moments to keep the way they have shaped to restore Man to the First Time.
In ancient Egypt this remnant is known as the Akhu, the Shining Ones of the First Time, who serve the Lord Osiris. Knowing the secrets of life and death, the making and unmaking of things, and the way of resurrection and ascension into the Otherworld, they are worshiped as deathless gods.
In thirteenth century Egypt, the alchemist Flegetanis of Alexandria confronts an ancient adversary, the shaman Morgon Kara, in a dispute over a fallen Templar who has become the key to the survival of the Na-Akhu-El Sages. A contest unfolds in a subtle weave of intrigue and betrayal, in a quest for the meaning of a lost way, and the resurrection of a man whose awakening holds the key to the fate of the world to come.