The tower
It is 70 AD A group of Roman soldiers crossing the Sahara desert is destroyed by a ferocious and mysterious presence hidden in a solitary tower at the extreme borders of the sea of sand. The sole survivor, Avile Vipinas, is inexplicably saved. Nineteen centuries later... young American scholar Philip Garrett is investigating his father's disappearance in the desert ten years earlier when he discovers the house of Avile Vipinas in the underground ruins of Pompeii, sealed by the earthquake of 79 AD. Before his death Vipinas had tried to describe the horrific presence in the Tower of Solitude and to make the first faltering steps to its destruction. But who are the ancient civilization - older than the oldest known - who created this tower? And what is its purpose?