"You speak of loyalty," Raja Varma said, his eyes narrowing. "But what of the dead? Do they remain loyal, or do they wait in the dark for their turn to strike?"
He clapped his hands.
From the shadows behind the throne, a figure emerged. He wore the battered bronze cuirass of a Macedonian Captain. His face was a map of scar tissue, and his left eye was a clouded, sightless pearl—the wound of a Persian scimitar.
I felt the air leave the room. It was Black Cleitus. The man who had saved my life at the Granicus. The man I had supposedly killed in a drunken rage years ago in Samarkand.
"Alexander," the figure spoke. The voice was a hollow rasp, like wind through dry leaves. "You left me in the dark. Did you think a grave could hold a man who knows your true name?"
My heart hammered against my ribs, but I kept my "drunken" posture. Was it a trick? A shapeshifter of the jungle? Or had the Raja found a way to pull my greatest guilt out of the dirt?
[The Map and the List]
The Raja leaned in, his voice a venomous lullaby. He placed an iron chest on the table between us. Inside lay a shimmering, translucent Map of the lands beyond the world—and a scorched List of my generals' signatures.
"Cleitus tells me your men are tired, Alexander," the Raja whispered. "The Map leads to the sunrise you crave. The List leads to the throats of your traitors. You may have the world, or you may have your life. But you cannot have both."
[ The Lion Awakens]
I looked at the Map. I looked at the Ghost. Then I looked at the "Companions" who were already half-standing, their daggers glinting in the lamplight.
My "drunken" haze vanished in a heartbeat. I stood up, the ivory throne crashing backward. I didn't reach for the map. I grabbed the List.
"I am Alexander!" I roared, the sound shattering the jade cups on the table. "I do not negotiate with shadows or traitors!"
I touched the List to a nearby torch, and as it flared into ash, I gave the signal.
From the balconies above, my loyal Hypaspists—who had entered the city disguised as servants—dropped their silken robes to reveal bared steel.
The feast turned into a charnel house.
The Strike: My blade found Philotas before he could clear his chair.
The Retribution: Cassander screamed as a spear pinned him to the white jade wall.
The Ghost: I turned to Cleitus, but the figure was gone—leaving only a puddle of stagnant river water where he had stood.
"Onward!" I shouted over the screams, my face splattered with the blood of my own friends. "To the Ganges! If the world will not give me its secrets, I will tear them out of its throat!!!