Pythagoras lies dying at the end of his long and magnificent life. Part genius, part mystic, he has devoted himself to defining the perfect cosmic system he created, the great unity of numbers and mathematics and the universe. But suddenly, it has all gone horribly wrong—a terrifying secret has arisen within the Brotherhood of his loyal followers, and murders are committed to protect it.
Tormented by memories and nightmares alike, ravaged by the Furies, by turns vague and lucid, Pythagoras refuses to face the fact that the utopian society that he has created is coming apart at the seams.
As Milo of Corinth, his protector, put it: “Pythagoras dreamed this perfect society into existence, and now he is dreaming it out of existence again.”
In Croton, the fabulous city that has prospered remarkably under the guiding hand of the Pythagoreans, the people rise in the streets, intent on driving the Brotherhood into the sea. For not even the great wealth and glorious social harmony of a place where men and women are regarded as equals and everyone benefited equally from the Pythagorean innovations is worth the terror struck into the hearts of the populous by the Unspeakable secret and the vengeance of the raging Furies.
Milo, three time Olympic champion, stands like a colossus between the forces of chaos and the great and wonderful dream of Pythagoras, but even he—the most loyal of all—knows that the disaster descending upon them is the direct result of the genius of Pythagoras run out of control and turned to madness.