An Assembly of Bones: Chapter One.
Feb. 27th, 2011 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
communi_kateTitle: An Assembly of Bones.
Fandom: Assassin's Creed.
Spoilers: think this story arc is quite possibly an AU by now.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: As my sister pointed out, Malik has extracted a kid from one terrorist organisation only to recruit him into his own. This is what social services calls 'grooming', kids. And it's bad.
Summary: Direct sequel to my fic The Word of God and the Treasures of Wisdom. Malik and Altair have spent the last two years travelling the world, using Altair's knowledge to discover the hidden Eden fragments and keep them from the Templars. When Altair is summoned back to Masyaf to take up the mantle of the Grand Master of the Assassins and Malik searches for an Eden fragment in the fables Garden of the Hesperides, they both get more than they bargained for...
Fandom: Assassin's Creed.
Spoilers: think this story arc is quite possibly an AU by now.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: As my sister pointed out, Malik has extracted a kid from one terrorist organisation only to recruit him into his own. This is what social services calls 'grooming', kids. And it's bad.
Summary: Direct sequel to my fic The Word of God and the Treasures of Wisdom. Malik and Altair have spent the last two years travelling the world, using Altair's knowledge to discover the hidden Eden fragments and keep them from the Templars. When Altair is summoned back to Masyaf to take up the mantle of the Grand Master of the Assassins and Malik searches for an Eden fragment in the fables Garden of the Hesperides, they both get more than they bargained for...
An Assembly of Bones
An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99
An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99
'Does man think that we cannot assemble his bones? Nay, we are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers'
The Quran
The Quran
Author's Note: This story takes place post AC1. Malik and Altaïr have spent the last two years travelling the world; using Altaïr's knowledge to discover the hidden Eden fragments and keep them from the Templars. When Altaïr is summoned back to Masyaf to take the mantle of the Grand Master of the Assassins and Malik searches for another Eden fragment in the fabled Garden of the Hesperides, they both get more than they bargained for...
Chapter One.
Morocco, 1193.
The plain was the colour of bones, bleached white by the midday sun. The crumbling remains of a Roman aqueduct snaked across the dusty gravel. Although it had been built of better stone than the vanished city it had once supplied, most of the aqueduct's dozen pillars had already collapsed. Two arches remained. Each cast a deep pool of shadow. The shade was a few degrees cooler than the baking plain around it.
Malik al-Sayf sat on a fallen stone beneath the second intact arch with a pen in his good right hand and a crumpled sheet of parchment on his knees. He scratched his chin with the tip of the pen and scowled down at the letter. It was a very hot day. Malik's temper unravelled thread by thread with each drop of sweat that ran down his face.
He wrote Master at the top of the parchment, paused, crossed the title out and replaced it with Altaïr.
I fear that I am not having much success, he wrote. There is still no news of the third Eden fragment...
A stone bounced from the gravel a hand's -breadth from Malik's feet. He persisted.
...And my attempts at teaching Marîd continue to frustrate me...
A second stone followed the first.
Malik put down his pen. He glanced up at the bright semicircle of sunlight that marked the high archway just as a panicked voice drifted from the aperture. "I'm going to fall!"
Malik sighed. He folded the letter and slipped it into his pocket. Once the message was safe he pulled his hood over his head, tucked his pen under the stump of his left arm and stepped out into the sun.
High above Malik's head, his apprentice flattened himself like a gecko against the crumbling bricks of the old aqueduct. Marîd was twelve years old, but he looked younger. His dusty robe blended well with the stones, masking his outline. Malik watched as Marîd moved his right hand tentatively upwards and jerked it back as a cascade of tiny stones tumbled from the ledge he had been about to grip. "I'm going to fall!" he protested.
Malik mapped the wall's hand and foot-holds in his own mind. "You're not."
"There's no way up." The boy's voice held an edge of frustration as well as panic.
"Don't be foolish." Malik raised his hand and pointed at the wall. "Think of it as a puzzle. There is always another way. In fact, there is a better handhold just to your right, beyond the vine."
Marîd looked uncertainly at the tiny crevice. "But-"
"The ledge will hold your weight," Malik said. It is amazing what will, he thought, if the alternative is falling to your death. "Take a breath to calm yourself. Then move quickly, before you lose all momentum."
Marîd nodded. He tensed for a second and launched himself towards the ledge, hanging seemingly without support for a second before his free hand gripped another hold and he pulled himself slowly up the wall.
Malik watched with satisfaction. He saw Marîd hesitate as he reached the top of the wall and called "How long do you think you will last, with the Templars on your tail? Move decisively, or not at all."
"I've seen the Templars." Marîd shouted back. "They're all old men."
Malik shook his head. "Not all of them." He glanced at the stump of his left arm despite himself. "Some Templars can climb, and those that can't can all use crossbows. You'd do well to remember that."
He watched Marîd digest the information and thought, not for the first time, that it would have been far easier to have killed the boy in Timbuktu.
He taxes me beyond what I had thought possible, he thought, reminding himself yet again that the path which was easiest to travel was not always the correct one. But at least now I understand why our teachers at Masyaf were all so short-tempered.
"Excellent," he called as Marîd swung himself over the parapet of the aqueduct. "You've broken the line of sight."
The boy tilted his head. "What use is that?"
"Have you forgotten how we hunt our prey?"
"No," the boy said quickly. "But-"
"And you should not speak until I give you leave."
Marîd opened his mouth, caught Malik's warning glare, and closed it again.
Finally, Malik thought. He wondered if he was being unnecessarily harsh. He had taken to answering all of Marîd's questions in the negative in the hope that the boy would eventually stop asking but Marîd didn't seem to work like that. "You may speak now," he said after a while.
The boy glanced hesitantly down at the void beneath his feet. "What now?"
"Now," Malik said, "you try the leap of faith."
Much later, when he had finally managed to talk the boy down, he wondered again just what he was doing wrong.
There were Assassins who possessed infinite patience; skilled teachers who could convey the most complicated ideas with a flick of a pen or a dagger. Malik was not one of them. He had never wanted to be an instructor. On good days, he found Marîd's lessons marginally interesting. On bad days, he hoped that the boy would fall from a great height and save him the trouble of a push.
And the damned Apple is still nowhere to be found...
Malik gazed out at the bone-white plain, calculating the odds of finding a single small artefact in this featureless waste. They were not good. His pessimistic train of thought was interrupted by Marîd. "Master?"
"I have told you many times," Malik said. "I am not your master."
The boy's forehead creased. He raised a hand and brushed fine rock dust from his hair. "Why not?"
"I'm a rafiq," Malik said. "Not a master Assassin." He shrugged. "And certainly not the Master. That title is Altaïr's."
Technically, he supposed, he was the boy's master-the Assassins were a hierarchical society, after all- but the title bothered him for any one of a dozen reasons. First and foremost among them was that if he had been a proper Master he would have beaten Marîd's distressing tendency to ask annoying questions at exactly the wrong moment out of him weeks ago. Moreover, the title implied some degree of responsibility. Malik did not want to be responsible for this child.
Truth be told, he thought, I have not the patience for the task.
"You'll have a real teacher at Masyaf," he said reassuringly. Though you may have to take your place with the toddlers and the women. "And the sooner we are at Masyaf, the better."
"For your sake?"
"For all our sakes," Malik said. "If you would learn, now recite the Creed."
"I-"
"Backwards," Malik snarled.
As the boy stuttered he settled back into the lengthening shade and thought longingly of Masyaf. His most vivid memories of the mountain fortress seemed insubstantial against the burning backdrop of the plain.
And I have not been to Masyaf myself in nearly two years, he thought sourly. No doubt Altair is taking his ease and enjoying the privileges of his new position...
Masyaf. 1193.
Even the midday heat did little to wipe the smirk from Abbas' face. "Altaïr," he said cheerily as he leaned against the gatepost of the Masyaf fortress. "Here at last. Did you know you're late?"
Altaïr ibn La-Ahad, pupil of Al Mualim and Grand Master of the Masyaf Assassins, nodded as he dismounted. "Safety and peace, Abbas. It's been a long journey."
"May it be longer still," said Abbas. "We heard word you docked at Acre. The rafiqs wait for you in the Master's study." He paused. "Your study. How things have changed."
"They will change more before I'm through." Altaïr said. He knotted his horse's reins to the hitching post outside the fortress gates, patted the beast's shoulder and picked up his pack. "Count on it, Abbas."
The older Assassin raised his eyebrows sceptically. "Really? You'd best hurry, then. The Persians aren't going to like this. You've been away too long, Altaïr."
"I did what I had to."
Abbas looked unconvinced. "If you say so." He swung the gate open and stepped aside as Altaïr entered."Altaïr?"
"Abbas?"
"Welcome home. For what it's worth, it's good to see you unharmed."
Altaïr smiled beneath the deep hood of his robe. "You as well, Abbas."
He climbed the steep path towards the village until Abbas and the gate had dwindled to miniatures behind him. Masyaf's ever-present breeze carried one final comment to his ears. "The Persians aren't going to like this at all..."
They didn't.
Altaïr reached the castle without attracting undue attention of any kind. Masyaf was an Assassin stronghold, and white-robed men were commonplace in the town. The keep guards, more savvy or observant than most of Masyaf's denizens, greeted him enthusiastically, and he had to decline the offer of a hot bath, clean clothing and a good meal before he finally climbed the broad flight of stairs to the old Master's study. Judging by the expressions on the faces of the six rafiqs he found there, the guards' hospitable impulses were not shared by the entire Assassin community.
He nodded to them. "My brothers," he said.
The rafiqs hesitated, as if greeting a ghost. Altaïr glanced around at their faces. He recognised only a few. There was Moctar, the old rafiq of Acre, clinging grimly to his position despite his advancing years. And Yusuf, who had been one of Altaïr's own teachers. Others were notable by their absence. The outspoken rafiq of Damascus had died in the last battle against the Old Man. And Malik, of course, was thousands of miles away.
The remainder were Nasr's men. They did not look happy. The old Master had been Persian, from Alamut. These men had been his closest companions. They stared silently at Altaïr. Altaïr left the silence where it was and waited for somebody to fill it. After a while one of the Persians said cautiously "Welcome, Master,"
Altaïr inclined his head.
"We have waited too long for your arrival," said another.
Altaïr ignored the thinly veiled criticism. "You may be seated," he said. Somebody had set out six narrow chairs in a loose semicircle around the Master's desk-his desk-and the Master's chair-his chair, he realised as he took his place.
He'd fled the castle in secrecy and haste. He had returned in triumph, but it didn't feel like success. Al Mualim's chair felt far too large.
He waited until the rafiqs had settled into sullen silence before he spoke again.
"I am no Al Mualim," he said. "There are those among you with more cause to realise that than others. We have weathered a great storm, and yet we must be cautious. Times are changing, and we must change with them." He looked around and noted which of the men looked most uneasy at the mention of change. "We must not forget the Creed. And," he added, "I have many questions myself. I have been away a long time."
"What are your orders?" asked another Persian Assassin. Altaïr did not recognise him, either. He made a mental note to learn all their names.
"Only that you speak freely," he said. "I would hear your thoughts."
He watched them consider this and thought; I would rather hear those emotions that you dare not put into words.
Altaïr's old teacher Yusuf stepped forwards and cleared his throat. "As you will know, the Ayyubids are in disarray," he said. "They at least do not pose a threat."
Altaïr frowned. "What of Saladin?" he asked.
They stared. "You have not heard?"
"I have been travelling for months," Altaïr said, perhaps a little more harshly then he intended.
"He has been dead and buried in Damascus these last three months," the second Persian said. "The Destroyer came to him not long after the Franj king quit the Holy Land."
Saladin dead? Altaïr frowned beneath his hood. "This is troubling news. Who is his successor?"
"He has divided his lands between his kin."
Every Assassin knew that division bred conflict. Altaïr's frown deepened. "I had hoped that peace would remain for longer," he said. "But it cannot be helped. We shall do what we must, should the need arise. Has there been news of the Templars?"
"None," somebody replied.
The Persian rafiq snorted. "The Templars have been broken."
"Broken," Altaïr said firmly, "but not yet defeated."
"The Holy Land is lost to them."
Moctar of Acre coughed and cleared his throat with a rattle of phlegm."They will be back," he said, spitting on the threadbare carpet. A gloomy silence followed his pronouncement.
"You are right," Altaïr replied. "But we have defeated the Templars once already. We shall do so again." He thought of Saladin, now dead. A lethal enemy, but one he had respected. "Besides, greater men have broken armies on these walls. We shall be safe."
"If they come," one of the younger men said tentatively, "we have ourselves a great weapon in the Eden fragments that you seek."
"They are greater than any weapon I have ever known." Altaïr took a deep breath. "And they are evil. We should not trust them."
"Evil or not, I hear that you have retrieved another orb," said Moctar. "May we see it?"
Altaïr nodded. He reached into his pack. The Eden fragment came easily to his hand. He lifted it out, unwrapped its shroud of fabric and set the artefact on the desk, where its surface gleamed in the rainbow light that shone through the stained glass window. The rafiqs regarded the relic warily, as if it were a deadly snake.
"Where did you find it?" asked another Persian.
"Timbuktu." Altaïr said. He flicked the orb with his fingernail. The patterns carved into its surface shone like water.
"Are there more?"
"Yes." He looked up at them all. "Is the Cairo artefact safe?"
Moctar nodded. "It is." He glanced around and scowled at the eager faces of the younger men. "That makes two, and if you ask me, that's twice the trouble."
"Each orb that we possess is another taken out of the hands of the Templars," replied Altaïr.
"Would it not be safer to destroy them?" Yusuf asked.
Altaïr shook his head. He recalled the holocaust captured in the orb; heard the screams. "In truth, I do not think we can destroy them. It is our task to keep them safe, and, maybe, to try to understand them."
"But-"
"If the Templars seize the Eden pieces, we stand no chance at all," Altaïr said firmly. "But enough of this. We must rebuild. Others will come. Make them welcome. Teach them our creed. Now leave me to think on what must be done. I'll summon you again very soon."
The rafiqs nodded with various degrees of enthusiasm. They filed out only when it became clear that Altaïr was not going to leave before them. Only Moctar paused beside Altaïr's desk.
"Master?" he said, and sounded like he meant it. His skinny hand stretched out to grasp the Apple. "Shall I stow this orb with the other?"
"Leave it here." Altaïr said curtly.
Moctar nodded and left.
The new Master sighed as he listened to their boots descending the stairs. When he was alone he relaxed a fraction. He reached out for the orb despite himself, careful to keep a layer of cloth between the artefact and his skin.
I have so many questions, he thought. How and why did Nasr die? Did he use the Cairo orb before he met his end? What of Saladin, and his successors? Are the Templars really as broken as they seem? And what does all this mean for the peace of the Holy Land?
He sighed again and held the orb up to the light that streamed through the tall window behind him.
What are these Eden fragments? Are they evil? Or may they yet be turned to good once out of Templar hands?
He shook his head. He had more immediate matters at hand.
I need friends here. I need advisors I can trust. And I'd best find them quickly. Abbas, maybe. Rauf, if he yet lives. I must turn the Persians from Alamut, and stay vigilant for the Templars and their plans.
Altaïr looked around at Al Mualim's great library. Nasr had made few changes. It was all as he remembered it. The Master's knowledge would be recorded in the books. He'd have to search the archives, or have someone do it for him.
So many questions. And there will be more. More every day.
He wondered how many questions he had forgotten to ask. And there would be things that he had forgotten.
I wish that I was still wandering in the desert, he thought.
To be continued...
Chapter One.
Morocco, 1193.
The plain was the colour of bones, bleached white by the midday sun. The crumbling remains of a Roman aqueduct snaked across the dusty gravel. Although it had been built of better stone than the vanished city it had once supplied, most of the aqueduct's dozen pillars had already collapsed. Two arches remained. Each cast a deep pool of shadow. The shade was a few degrees cooler than the baking plain around it.
Malik al-Sayf sat on a fallen stone beneath the second intact arch with a pen in his good right hand and a crumpled sheet of parchment on his knees. He scratched his chin with the tip of the pen and scowled down at the letter. It was a very hot day. Malik's temper unravelled thread by thread with each drop of sweat that ran down his face.
He wrote Master at the top of the parchment, paused, crossed the title out and replaced it with Altaïr.
I fear that I am not having much success, he wrote. There is still no news of the third Eden fragment...
A stone bounced from the gravel a hand's -breadth from Malik's feet. He persisted.
...And my attempts at teaching Marîd continue to frustrate me...
A second stone followed the first.
Malik put down his pen. He glanced up at the bright semicircle of sunlight that marked the high archway just as a panicked voice drifted from the aperture. "I'm going to fall!"
Malik sighed. He folded the letter and slipped it into his pocket. Once the message was safe he pulled his hood over his head, tucked his pen under the stump of his left arm and stepped out into the sun.
High above Malik's head, his apprentice flattened himself like a gecko against the crumbling bricks of the old aqueduct. Marîd was twelve years old, but he looked younger. His dusty robe blended well with the stones, masking his outline. Malik watched as Marîd moved his right hand tentatively upwards and jerked it back as a cascade of tiny stones tumbled from the ledge he had been about to grip. "I'm going to fall!" he protested.
Malik mapped the wall's hand and foot-holds in his own mind. "You're not."
"There's no way up." The boy's voice held an edge of frustration as well as panic.
"Don't be foolish." Malik raised his hand and pointed at the wall. "Think of it as a puzzle. There is always another way. In fact, there is a better handhold just to your right, beyond the vine."
Marîd looked uncertainly at the tiny crevice. "But-"
"The ledge will hold your weight," Malik said. It is amazing what will, he thought, if the alternative is falling to your death. "Take a breath to calm yourself. Then move quickly, before you lose all momentum."
Marîd nodded. He tensed for a second and launched himself towards the ledge, hanging seemingly without support for a second before his free hand gripped another hold and he pulled himself slowly up the wall.
Malik watched with satisfaction. He saw Marîd hesitate as he reached the top of the wall and called "How long do you think you will last, with the Templars on your tail? Move decisively, or not at all."
"I've seen the Templars." Marîd shouted back. "They're all old men."
Malik shook his head. "Not all of them." He glanced at the stump of his left arm despite himself. "Some Templars can climb, and those that can't can all use crossbows. You'd do well to remember that."
He watched Marîd digest the information and thought, not for the first time, that it would have been far easier to have killed the boy in Timbuktu.
He taxes me beyond what I had thought possible, he thought, reminding himself yet again that the path which was easiest to travel was not always the correct one. But at least now I understand why our teachers at Masyaf were all so short-tempered.
"Excellent," he called as Marîd swung himself over the parapet of the aqueduct. "You've broken the line of sight."
The boy tilted his head. "What use is that?"
"Have you forgotten how we hunt our prey?"
"No," the boy said quickly. "But-"
"And you should not speak until I give you leave."
Marîd opened his mouth, caught Malik's warning glare, and closed it again.
Finally, Malik thought. He wondered if he was being unnecessarily harsh. He had taken to answering all of Marîd's questions in the negative in the hope that the boy would eventually stop asking but Marîd didn't seem to work like that. "You may speak now," he said after a while.
The boy glanced hesitantly down at the void beneath his feet. "What now?"
"Now," Malik said, "you try the leap of faith."
Much later, when he had finally managed to talk the boy down, he wondered again just what he was doing wrong.
There were Assassins who possessed infinite patience; skilled teachers who could convey the most complicated ideas with a flick of a pen or a dagger. Malik was not one of them. He had never wanted to be an instructor. On good days, he found Marîd's lessons marginally interesting. On bad days, he hoped that the boy would fall from a great height and save him the trouble of a push.
And the damned Apple is still nowhere to be found...
Malik gazed out at the bone-white plain, calculating the odds of finding a single small artefact in this featureless waste. They were not good. His pessimistic train of thought was interrupted by Marîd. "Master?"
"I have told you many times," Malik said. "I am not your master."
The boy's forehead creased. He raised a hand and brushed fine rock dust from his hair. "Why not?"
"I'm a rafiq," Malik said. "Not a master Assassin." He shrugged. "And certainly not the Master. That title is Altaïr's."
Technically, he supposed, he was the boy's master-the Assassins were a hierarchical society, after all- but the title bothered him for any one of a dozen reasons. First and foremost among them was that if he had been a proper Master he would have beaten Marîd's distressing tendency to ask annoying questions at exactly the wrong moment out of him weeks ago. Moreover, the title implied some degree of responsibility. Malik did not want to be responsible for this child.
Truth be told, he thought, I have not the patience for the task.
"You'll have a real teacher at Masyaf," he said reassuringly. Though you may have to take your place with the toddlers and the women. "And the sooner we are at Masyaf, the better."
"For your sake?"
"For all our sakes," Malik said. "If you would learn, now recite the Creed."
"I-"
"Backwards," Malik snarled.
As the boy stuttered he settled back into the lengthening shade and thought longingly of Masyaf. His most vivid memories of the mountain fortress seemed insubstantial against the burning backdrop of the plain.
And I have not been to Masyaf myself in nearly two years, he thought sourly. No doubt Altair is taking his ease and enjoying the privileges of his new position...
Masyaf. 1193.
Even the midday heat did little to wipe the smirk from Abbas' face. "Altaïr," he said cheerily as he leaned against the gatepost of the Masyaf fortress. "Here at last. Did you know you're late?"
Altaïr ibn La-Ahad, pupil of Al Mualim and Grand Master of the Masyaf Assassins, nodded as he dismounted. "Safety and peace, Abbas. It's been a long journey."
"May it be longer still," said Abbas. "We heard word you docked at Acre. The rafiqs wait for you in the Master's study." He paused. "Your study. How things have changed."
"They will change more before I'm through." Altaïr said. He knotted his horse's reins to the hitching post outside the fortress gates, patted the beast's shoulder and picked up his pack. "Count on it, Abbas."
The older Assassin raised his eyebrows sceptically. "Really? You'd best hurry, then. The Persians aren't going to like this. You've been away too long, Altaïr."
"I did what I had to."
Abbas looked unconvinced. "If you say so." He swung the gate open and stepped aside as Altaïr entered."Altaïr?"
"Abbas?"
"Welcome home. For what it's worth, it's good to see you unharmed."
Altaïr smiled beneath the deep hood of his robe. "You as well, Abbas."
He climbed the steep path towards the village until Abbas and the gate had dwindled to miniatures behind him. Masyaf's ever-present breeze carried one final comment to his ears. "The Persians aren't going to like this at all..."
They didn't.
Altaïr reached the castle without attracting undue attention of any kind. Masyaf was an Assassin stronghold, and white-robed men were commonplace in the town. The keep guards, more savvy or observant than most of Masyaf's denizens, greeted him enthusiastically, and he had to decline the offer of a hot bath, clean clothing and a good meal before he finally climbed the broad flight of stairs to the old Master's study. Judging by the expressions on the faces of the six rafiqs he found there, the guards' hospitable impulses were not shared by the entire Assassin community.
He nodded to them. "My brothers," he said.
The rafiqs hesitated, as if greeting a ghost. Altaïr glanced around at their faces. He recognised only a few. There was Moctar, the old rafiq of Acre, clinging grimly to his position despite his advancing years. And Yusuf, who had been one of Altaïr's own teachers. Others were notable by their absence. The outspoken rafiq of Damascus had died in the last battle against the Old Man. And Malik, of course, was thousands of miles away.
The remainder were Nasr's men. They did not look happy. The old Master had been Persian, from Alamut. These men had been his closest companions. They stared silently at Altaïr. Altaïr left the silence where it was and waited for somebody to fill it. After a while one of the Persians said cautiously "Welcome, Master,"
Altaïr inclined his head.
"We have waited too long for your arrival," said another.
Altaïr ignored the thinly veiled criticism. "You may be seated," he said. Somebody had set out six narrow chairs in a loose semicircle around the Master's desk-his desk-and the Master's chair-his chair, he realised as he took his place.
He'd fled the castle in secrecy and haste. He had returned in triumph, but it didn't feel like success. Al Mualim's chair felt far too large.
He waited until the rafiqs had settled into sullen silence before he spoke again.
"I am no Al Mualim," he said. "There are those among you with more cause to realise that than others. We have weathered a great storm, and yet we must be cautious. Times are changing, and we must change with them." He looked around and noted which of the men looked most uneasy at the mention of change. "We must not forget the Creed. And," he added, "I have many questions myself. I have been away a long time."
"What are your orders?" asked another Persian Assassin. Altaïr did not recognise him, either. He made a mental note to learn all their names.
"Only that you speak freely," he said. "I would hear your thoughts."
He watched them consider this and thought; I would rather hear those emotions that you dare not put into words.
Altaïr's old teacher Yusuf stepped forwards and cleared his throat. "As you will know, the Ayyubids are in disarray," he said. "They at least do not pose a threat."
Altaïr frowned. "What of Saladin?" he asked.
They stared. "You have not heard?"
"I have been travelling for months," Altaïr said, perhaps a little more harshly then he intended.
"He has been dead and buried in Damascus these last three months," the second Persian said. "The Destroyer came to him not long after the Franj king quit the Holy Land."
Saladin dead? Altaïr frowned beneath his hood. "This is troubling news. Who is his successor?"
"He has divided his lands between his kin."
Every Assassin knew that division bred conflict. Altaïr's frown deepened. "I had hoped that peace would remain for longer," he said. "But it cannot be helped. We shall do what we must, should the need arise. Has there been news of the Templars?"
"None," somebody replied.
The Persian rafiq snorted. "The Templars have been broken."
"Broken," Altaïr said firmly, "but not yet defeated."
"The Holy Land is lost to them."
Moctar of Acre coughed and cleared his throat with a rattle of phlegm."They will be back," he said, spitting on the threadbare carpet. A gloomy silence followed his pronouncement.
"You are right," Altaïr replied. "But we have defeated the Templars once already. We shall do so again." He thought of Saladin, now dead. A lethal enemy, but one he had respected. "Besides, greater men have broken armies on these walls. We shall be safe."
"If they come," one of the younger men said tentatively, "we have ourselves a great weapon in the Eden fragments that you seek."
"They are greater than any weapon I have ever known." Altaïr took a deep breath. "And they are evil. We should not trust them."
"Evil or not, I hear that you have retrieved another orb," said Moctar. "May we see it?"
Altaïr nodded. He reached into his pack. The Eden fragment came easily to his hand. He lifted it out, unwrapped its shroud of fabric and set the artefact on the desk, where its surface gleamed in the rainbow light that shone through the stained glass window. The rafiqs regarded the relic warily, as if it were a deadly snake.
"Where did you find it?" asked another Persian.
"Timbuktu." Altaïr said. He flicked the orb with his fingernail. The patterns carved into its surface shone like water.
"Are there more?"
"Yes." He looked up at them all. "Is the Cairo artefact safe?"
Moctar nodded. "It is." He glanced around and scowled at the eager faces of the younger men. "That makes two, and if you ask me, that's twice the trouble."
"Each orb that we possess is another taken out of the hands of the Templars," replied Altaïr.
"Would it not be safer to destroy them?" Yusuf asked.
Altaïr shook his head. He recalled the holocaust captured in the orb; heard the screams. "In truth, I do not think we can destroy them. It is our task to keep them safe, and, maybe, to try to understand them."
"But-"
"If the Templars seize the Eden pieces, we stand no chance at all," Altaïr said firmly. "But enough of this. We must rebuild. Others will come. Make them welcome. Teach them our creed. Now leave me to think on what must be done. I'll summon you again very soon."
The rafiqs nodded with various degrees of enthusiasm. They filed out only when it became clear that Altaïr was not going to leave before them. Only Moctar paused beside Altaïr's desk.
"Master?" he said, and sounded like he meant it. His skinny hand stretched out to grasp the Apple. "Shall I stow this orb with the other?"
"Leave it here." Altaïr said curtly.
Moctar nodded and left.
The new Master sighed as he listened to their boots descending the stairs. When he was alone he relaxed a fraction. He reached out for the orb despite himself, careful to keep a layer of cloth between the artefact and his skin.
I have so many questions, he thought. How and why did Nasr die? Did he use the Cairo orb before he met his end? What of Saladin, and his successors? Are the Templars really as broken as they seem? And what does all this mean for the peace of the Holy Land?
He sighed again and held the orb up to the light that streamed through the tall window behind him.
What are these Eden fragments? Are they evil? Or may they yet be turned to good once out of Templar hands?
He shook his head. He had more immediate matters at hand.
I need friends here. I need advisors I can trust. And I'd best find them quickly. Abbas, maybe. Rauf, if he yet lives. I must turn the Persians from Alamut, and stay vigilant for the Templars and their plans.
Altaïr looked around at Al Mualim's great library. Nasr had made few changes. It was all as he remembered it. The Master's knowledge would be recorded in the books. He'd have to search the archives, or have someone do it for him.
So many questions. And there will be more. More every day.
He wondered how many questions he had forgotten to ask. And there would be things that he had forgotten.
I wish that I was still wandering in the desert, he thought.
To be continued...
