Stealing Fire

This is the tale of Alexander’s soldier, Lydias of Miletus, who having survived the final campaigns of the king’s life now has to deal with the chaos surrounding his death. Still mourning his Indian wife, Sati, and their infant son, who were killed in Gedrosia, Lydias throws his lot in with Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals who has grabbed Egypt as his personal territory.

As the generals fight and plot and murder, it seems as though Alexander’s dreams will slip away entirely. But the gods of Egypt have other ideas, and they are through with neither Ptolemy nor Lydias. Lydias has served them before, when another armada threatened to overrun Egypt in the distant past, and now they will aid Ptolemy in his most audacious plan — stealing Alexander’s body and bringing it to Egypt to be an eternal bulwark against invasion, and the cornerstone of the city that would exemplify his dreams.

Aided by the eunuch Bagoas, the Persian archer Artashir, and the Athenian courtesan Thais, Ptolemy and Lydias must take on all the contenders in a desperate adventure whose prize is the fate of a white city by the sea, and Alexander’s legacy.