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Reading this sequel to Lion of Macedon is like reading a compressed, accelerated Lord of the Rings crossed with the classic Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror." Preternaturally precocious 4-year-old Alexander is kidnapped by Philippos, a demonic parallel-universe twin of King Philip of Macedon. Philip's strategos (chief general and strategist), Parmenion, and Philip's assassin, Attalus, form an uneasy alliance in order to retrieve Alexander. Passed (by the sorcerer Aristotle) through a portal to Makedones, a world geographically similar to but historically different from their own, they must first find Alexander and then make their way through hostile, enchanted territory inhabited by magical creatures to a rendezvous with Aristotle. But Philip of Macedon isn't the only person who has a twin in this parallel world, and as Parmenion discovers more about Makedones, he finds that the similarities rather than the differences are the most troubling.
There are two stories here. First, Alexander's mystic quest for redemption (carried out by the chosen few) and Parmenion and the Spartans' parallel last-ditch battle (fought with ordinary weapons); then, David Gemmell follows Alexander and Parmenion home. Although they have beaten a horrific demon in Makedones, they have yet to face the demons of Macedon: Alexander's life and soul are at stake in another battle against darkness.
Source: Amazon.com.
The chaos spirit had chosen the child Alexander to be its human host. But Parmenion, most powerful warrior of ancient Greece, had won a small victory over the darkness that sought to rule through Alexander. The boy's soul had not been destroyed by evil, but instead had merged with it -- and now Parmenion aided Alexander in the battle between light and dark that constantly raged within him.
But there was another world, where the creatures of Greece's legends still flourished. There, the chaos spirit already ruled, through a demon king. In this Greece, there was a prophecy that a child of great power, the legendary golden child, would come and restore the fading magic of the land to the creatures of myth. The demon king believed also that devouring the heart of this fabled child would give him immortality. He believed Alexander, with the power of the chaos spirit within him, to be that child. And so he called Alexander into his world . . .
Only Parmenion, guided by the seeress Derae, his lost love from another life, could hope to save Alexander from the demon king. But who could save the young prince from the chaos spirit that threatened to conquer his soul?
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