The Apocalypse of Charlemagne

A Bifurcated Fable

Historical Fantasy – 86,000 words, complete

It is late spring, 773 C.E., and on the eve of launching a critical military campaign in northern Italy, Charlemagne’s sanity hangs by a thread. Bewitched by both Saxon and Byzantine curses, the Frankish king has no idea that his ultimate deliverance hinges on the choices of a 21st century knight with amnesia thrown back in time, whose fantastical adventure through an altered reality populated by giant dragonflies and mystical visions begins to align itself with that of the Carolingian ruler.  

Both the confused Knight and soon-to-be critically wounded King seek healing as they make their way through the untamed, 8th century borderlands of the Frankish empire. Assaulted by highway bandits and attacked by Lombard armies on their individual quests, they are helped by loyal companions both old and new – women, men, dragonflies, and more – who usher them through hostile territories and across alien lands. All are drawn to a peculiar town located atop a sacred mountain in the Italian Piedmont. There, at the waters of an ancient well built by an archangel and guarded by mysterious women, the fate of all is decided in an apocalyptic confrontation between malevolent powers thirsting for destruction and forces for good struggling toward redemption.