David Gemmell - Dark Prince

'I do not think so,' he said softly. 'Demosthenes makes great play about your tyranny and your supposed evils. His honeyed words seduce many of the lesser cities. How would he appear if named as a child killer? No. If Athens sent assassins their victim would be you, not Alexander. What did the priestess say when you saw her?"

‘Pah!' snorted the King. 'She is an old fool. She walked around the boy's room pretending to talk to the spirits. But, at the end, she could tell me nothing.'

'But what did she say?'

'She told me the boy's spirit was not in Macedonia. Nor in Hades. Now you tell me how that could be true. He had not been gone more than half a day. Even if he was carried away by an eagle he would still have been in Macedonia when she spoke. Senile old hag! But I tell you this, she was frightened. She trembled when she entered his room.'

'You should rest,' Parmenion advised him. 'Go to bed. Send for one of your wives.'

'That's the last thing I need, my friend. They are hard-pressed to keep the glee from their eyes. My son and heir is missing- maybe dead. All they can think of is opening their legs and supplying me with another. No. I shall not rest until the truth is known.'

Attalus entered the throne-room and bowed. 'There is a slave missing, sire,' he said, his face ashen. 'His name is Lolon; he is a sandal-maker, a Methonian.'

'What do we know of him?' asked Parmenion, keeping his expression even.

'I bought him from the commander of Pelagonia some months ago. He was a good worker. The other slaves say he was a quiet man, keeping to himself. I know no more.'

'What was he doing in my son's room?' thundered Philip. 'He must have had a reason.'

'He told Melissa — one of my slave-girls — that he had a family in Methone. His children were slaughtered, his wife taken from him.' Attalus cleared his throat and swallowed hard. 'I think he wanted revenge.'

Philip surged from the throne. 'He must have had accomplices — or else where is the boy? How many other Methonians have you brought into the palace?'

'There are none, sire. And I did not know he was Methonian, I swear it!'

'Attalus is not at fault, sire,' said Parmenion. 'We have stormed many cities and flooded the land with slaves. That is why the price per man is only forty drachms against two hundred three years ago. Almost every slave in Pella would have reason to hate you.'

'I care nothing for their hate!' snapped Philip. 'But you are right, Parmenion, Attalus is blameless.' Turning to his Champion, he patted the man's shoulder. 'Forgive my anger, my friend.'

'There is nothing to forgive, sire,' answered Attalus, bowing.

Later, as Parmenion sat alone in one of the forty palace guest-rooms, Attalus came to him. 'Why did you speak for me?' he demanded. 'I am no friend to you — nor desire to be.'

Parmenion gazed into the man's cold eyes, seeing the tension there and in the tight lines of his hatchet face, the grim gash of his almost lipless mouth. 'It is not a question of friendship, Attalus,' he said, 'merely of truth. Now I do not enjoy your company and, if you have nothing else to say, be so kind as to leave me in peace.'

But the man did not leave. Walking further into the room, he sat in a high-backed chair and poured a goblet of watered wine, sipping it slowly. 'This is good,' he said. 'Do you think the story about the stars is important?'

'I don't know,' admitted the Spartan, 'but I intend to find out.'

'And how will you accomplish this?'

'When first I came to Macedonia I met a magus — a man of great power. I will seek him out. If there is sorcery involved, he will know of it- and its source.'

'And where will you find this. . man of magic?'

'Sitting upon a rock,' the Spartan answered.

Alexander opened his eyes and shivered, feeling cold mud beneath his rain-soaked body. He had fallen, screaming and lost, through the star-filled sky, losing consciousness as bright lights and myriad colours blazed across his eyes.

Now there were no colours, only a bone-numbing coldness and the dark of a mountain night.

He was about to move when he heard the voices and instinctively he crouched down, staring at the shadow-haunted tree-line from where the voices came.

'I swear to you, sire, the child is here. The Spell took him and drew him to this hillside. I did warn you that it might not be precisely to this spot. But he must be within a hundred paces in any direction.'

'Find him — or I'll feed your heart to the Vores.'

Alexander shivered again — though this time not from the cold. The second voice was like his father's, though deeper and more chilling. He could not yet see the speakers but he knew they were coming closer. There were bushes nearby and the child crept into them, hunching his naked body down.

The glittering light of many torches flickered in the trees and Alexander saw the man with the golden eye walk out on to the mountainside, the dark-robed priest alongside him. Behind him came a score of warriors holding torches aloft, scanning the undergrowth, searching, pushing aside the bracken with long lances.

The leaf-covered soil was damp and soft beneath the boy and he dug his fingers deep into it, rolling silently to his back and pulling earth and rotted vegetation over his legs and chest. He could feel small insects scurrying in panic over his skin, and a soft worm slid over his left calf. Ignoring the discomfort, he smeared mud on his face and hair and waited, heart beating wildly, for the searchers.

'One thousand drachms to the man who finds him!' called the King.

'Aya!' roared the men, raising their torches in salute.

From where he lay, Alexander could see the legs and feet of the searchers as they neared him. They were barefoot, but their calves were protected by greaves of bronze, showing intricate designs. But each one that he saw had a central motif, a stylized sunburst. This surprised the child, for the sunburst was the symbol of Macedonia and yet the armour the men wore was neither Macedonian nor Phrygian — the breastplates more elaborate, the helms bearing raven's wings, rather than the horsehair plumes sported by his father's soldiers.

Even through his fear, Alexander was puzzled. These soldiers were like none he had ever seen, in life or in paintings or murals.

An enormous clap of thunder sounded, lightning forking across the sky.

A lance-point sliced through the bush above him, the branches parting. Then the lance pulled clear and the man moved on.

Alexander stayed where he was until all sounds around him faded away. At last, as the rain stopped, he moved his frozen body, crawling from the shelter of the bush and standing on the mountainside.

Glancing up, he gazed at the stars in the now clear sky — realizing with a sharp stab of fear that he knew them not at all. Where was the Bowman, and the Great Wolf, the Spear Carrier and the Earth Mother? Seeking out the North Star he scanned the heavens. Nothing was remotely familiar.

The searchers had moved down the mountain behind him and the boy decided to walk in the opposite direction.

The trees were shrouded in darkness, but Alexander swallowed his fear and moved on, deeper into the wood. After a little while he saw the altar of his dream, gaunt and stark in a small clearing, broken columns of stone around it. It was here that they had tried to summon him.

The clearing was deserted, but under a spreading oak a small fire still smouldered. Alexander ran to it, kneeling down and blowing flames to life. He searched for dry wood, but there was none and he sat by the dying blaze, holding his trembling hands to the fading heat.

'Where is this place?' he whispered. 'How can I get home?' Tears welled and he felt the beginning of panic. 'I will not cry,' he said. 'I am the son of a King.'