A/N: With Malik's help, Altaïr's Grand Master's library is so magical that there is a great Arabic translation of Gilgamesh in it. I will you to believe it to be so. Also, the translations of Gilgamesh obviously are not mine. They are from my Western Literature in a World Context and the Internet.
It has only been a month since the Ibn-La'Ahad trio left for Mongolia, and Malik isn't sure who has a bigger empty hole about it, Sef or him.
It's easy at first to miss someone, Malik thinks, because there is an unspoken rejection which comes with their departure. The place where this person was before, physical and mental, is still filled by a lingering ghost of air or soul, a dim whisper of existence. The smell of them is there, clinging to cloth and wind; the sound of their voice is there, buzzing in listening ears. Unfortunately, as time passes, so too does this warmth of memory.
The sudden break from both Altaïr and Maria has put Malik at more of a struggle than, he believes, his missing arm ever did. Doing large and small motor tasks only takes practice, and he always thought himself "handicapable" instead of handicapped. This, though-this is decidedly different from anything he has been accustom to, and even being in the Jerusalem bureau where he only saw Altaïr occasionally had been nothing like this. (Security, he knows, and possibility. Altaïr had usually been safe, and Malik had known the man would return again and again. Now, however...
Not that he doubts Altaïr's abilities.)
Standing by the table, Malik hardens his fingers against the tome in his hand, and the book creaks quietly under the pressure. Sef glances up very slowly, starting from Malik's hands to Malik's dark eyes, and there is some silent questioning in the gaze.
Even Sef's void of longing, Malik realizes, isn't quite as big as his own void. Sef has a wife and children, a little nitch of safety in the dark and cold loss. There's a wife to huddle with at night. Childish wonderings to distract him during the day. In the winter, there will be a familiar gathering of prideful family. In the spring, there will be festivities of a day of birth.
Malik has nothing.
"Are you all right, Uncle?" Sef asks softly, and Malik's mood eases considerably at the title. (They have always called him that, even if he really isn't related to them by blood at all. Altaïr had never discouraged it because of their own private brotherhood, but sometimes it is both a curse and a blessing: Malik feels like he had been-is-caring for Kadar's sons…)
Idly, Malik flips another page of the book. "I'm fine," he replies.
Sef, of course, doesn't seem remotely convinced. He is not as dull as his brother, Darim, in the sense that he can read others like himself, the scholarly people who hide their emotions behind a steel door. Sef has always been fond of Malik because he feels they are the same, that they have the same ideals. Honor. Work. Determination. Success.
Cartography.
Looking back down, Sef continues to scritch the quill in small strokes across the map, labeling, curling the serpent letters of Arabic and then dotting their snake eyes. He's finished with the word after making considerable effort to write it slowly and neatly: Venetian Fish Market. The ring of the words in his mind is more foreign than he can imagine despite seeing sketches of the West. Venetian Fish Market. It's a map of a far off place, one that sees a great deal of water and grass, he's heard—and also a great deal, supposedly, of societal stench. "Are you sure?" he finally asks, lowering the quill.
Malik hums a, "Mhm," but doesn't look up from the book he's pretending to be interested in. Then Ninsun, the page of the book reads in neat, Arabic scrawl, who is well-beloved and wise, said to Gilgamesh, "This star of heaven which descended like a meteor from the sky. . ." His eyes skim easily ahead, jump over the hills of characters, roll down the slopes of the curves: "I made it for you, a goad and spur, and you were drawn as though to a woman. This is the strong comrade, the one who brings help to his friend in his need. He is the strongest of wild creatures, the stuff of Anu; born in the grass-lands and the wild hills reared him. When you see him, you will be glad. You will love him as a woman, and he will never forsake you. . . ."
Sef calmly watches Malik read for a long while, voiceless and motionless. The lines of Malik's lips and eyes are intense, Sef thinks, intense and concentrated. There is something about the tome that holds Malik captive, something about the words that twist Malik's very soul with passionate fire. "Uncle," Sef says, "will you read me some?"
And so Malik reads, slow and husky, with purpose after a brief silence of uncertainty: "Mighty Gilgamesh came on and Enkidu met him at the gate, and Enkidu put out his foot to prevent Gilgamesh from entering the house. So they both grappled, holding each other like bulls. They broke the doorposts and the walls quaked. They snorted, locked together just like bulls. Gilgamesh bent one knee with his foot planted on the ground, and with a turn, Gilgamesh threw Enkidu as easily as throwing a rock. Immediately, Enkidu's fury died away. After Enkidu was thrown, he said to Gilgamesh: 'There is not another like you in the world. Ninsun, who is as strong as a wild ox is the mother who bore you, and now you are raised above all men, and Enlil has given the kingship because your strength surpasses the strength of men.' So Enkidu and Gilgamesh embraced, and their friendship was sealed."
"Ah," says Sef with a smile. "I like this story."
In the ebbing light of the afternoon, Malik continues to read Sef the tale of the great king Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu. Sef listens, still smiling, like a pious fool being offered the wisdom of gods.
Days pass. A week passes, and Malik picks up reading the story to Sef on a hushed Sunday while the two of them are idle in plush cushions by the Grand Master window. It had been at Sef's request.
"I feel as if I know Gilgamesh and Enkidu," says Sef off-handedly, a small but not unwanted interruption during the reading.
"Oh?" Malik inquires.
"Yes," continues Sef, and then he smiles up at the ceiling while twirling a braided tassel between his fingers. "I feel as if they are real, as if I have met them before. Like if I decided to take a walk in the village, they would come out of the throng of people together, a lion and a wolf."
Amusement touches the corner of Malik's lips. "Do you remember this story?"
Sef shrugs helplessly. "Barely," he says, sounding apologetic. "I was so young when you read it to us before, so that is why I wanted to hear it again. I remember enjoying it."
Slowly, Malik nods, and then takes the tome back up in hand. "It is an old story," he tells Sef. "An old story about friendship, about courage, and about immortality."
Malik doesn't like the part of the story they are coming to, not in the slightest. It is the worst part, in his eyes, yet it is so natural and inevitable that it makes his chest pinch and ache. He has never liked that part of the story; however, sharing it with Sef lessens the painful blister of truth he feels in the back of his mind. Sharing it with Sef brings about a new appreciation, a new insight: He is not as empty-handed as he thought before, and he is not alone in his grueling days wondering how Altaïr, Maria, and Darim fare.
Malik has something.
He realizes it suddenly with surprising perplexity, and the epiphany makes him gradually begin to see that Sef has been here all along, has been like a son to him.
"Keep going," Sef urges quietly.
And so Malik continues the story, recounting Gilgamesh's meeting with Ishtar, how Gilgamesh reminds her of her hideous acts and how she goes crying to her father, Anu. Ishtar, Malik reads to Sef, demands the Bull of Heaven, or she will break the gates of the Netherworld and bring the dead to eat with the living, ruin crops and starve the cattle. Anu, Malik tells Sef grimly, gives Ishtar the Bull of Heaven, and she leads it down to Uruk where Gilgamesh and Enkidu battle it courageously.
Night falls on Malik and Sef, and they are unable to finish, but Malik doesn't mind. He doesn't care for the part they are coming to, not in the slightest.
Months pass, and then a year comes and goes. Malik and Sef, standing together, watch the burning and dry summer fall on Masyaf; the cool autumn; the icy and white winter; and then, once more, sticky spring returns to them. There's unrest stirring in the fortress, in the hearts of certain Assassins, and it can be felt quivering through the ranks.
Malik and Sef haven't touched the story since, but now Altaïr's son comes to Malik asking for the rest, asking what happens. "Please," Sef adds, handing Malik the tome.
In the light of a candle and the bright moon coming through the window, the two of them sit at the Grand Master's table side by side. Malik's voice is so soft in the quiet that there's a husk to it, and he carries on the tale from where they left off nearly a year ago.
Enkidu grows ill, Malik tells Sef, and this is Malik's least favorite part. Enkidu, he says to ever-listening and curious-eyed Sef, has a dream that the Great Ones held a counsel to decide who would die for killing the Bull of Heaven and Humbaba of Cedar Mountain.
It will be Enkidu.
"So Enkidu lies stretched out before Gilgamesh," Malik reads, "his tears run down in streams and he says to Gilgamesh, 'O my brother, so dear as you are to me, brother, yet they will take me from you.' And again he says, 'I must sit down on the threshold of the dead, and never again will I see my dear brother with my eyes.' And Enkidu becomes ill."
Sef shifts uneasily, and Malik can feel, to the bone, the frown that goes along with it. "That's terrible," whispers Sef.
"That is life," Malik reminds the young man, and he recites the account of Enkidu's death to a twisted-lipped Sef:
". . .I weep for Enkidu, my friend," the words say, immortalized in black ink on the stiff parchment "Bitterly moaning like a woman mourning, I weep for my brother. O Enkidu, my brother, you were the axe at my side, my hand's strength, the sword in my belt, the shield before me, a glorious robe, my fairest ornament. An evil fate has robbed me. . . . What is this sleep which holds you now? You are lost in the dark and cannot hear me."
Malik pauses to lift his dark eyes, and Sef, determined, nods for him to continue.
"Gilgamesh touched Enkidu's heart," says Malik, "but it did not beat, nor did Enkidu lift his eyes again. So Gilgamesh laid a veil, as one veils the bride, over his friend. He began to rage like a lion, like a lioness robbed of her whelps. This way and that he paced round the bed, he tore out his hair and strewed it about. He dragged off his splendid robes and flung them down as though they were abominations.
"In the first light of dawn, Gilgamesh cried out, 'I made you rest on a royal bed, you reclined on a couch at my left hand, the princes of the earth kissed your feet. I will cause all the people of Uruk to weep over you and raise the dirge of the dead. The joyful people will stoop with sorrow, and when you have gone to the earth, I will let my hair grow long for your sake. I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion.'
"The next day also, in the first light, Gilgamesh lamented; seven days and seven nights, he wept for Enkidu. . . Then Gilgamesh issued a proclamation through the land; he summoned them all, the coppersmiths, the goldsmiths, the stone-workers, and commanded them: 'Make a statue of my friend.' The statue was fashioned with a great weight of lapis lazuli for the breast and of gold for the body. A table of hard-wood was set out, and on it, a bowl of carnelian filled with honey and a bowl of lapis lazuli filled with butter." These, the ending of the page says, he exposed and offered to the Sun and, weeping, he went away.
A wry smile comes to Sef's lips, and he reaches out to place a hand on Malik's wrist. "A fitting way to honor a brother," Sef whispers reassuringly. "Gilgamesh loved him."
"Yes," agrees Malik.
"Enkidu is still by Gilgamesh's side even in death," adds Sef.
Yes, Malik thinks as he closes the book, this is true. "And then," he says aloud to Sef, "Gilgamesh sets out to be immortal, so that he does not suffer the same fate as his friend."
Now Sef is frowning, glancing first at the tabletop, glancing again back up at Malik. He looks confused, but hopeful and expectant. "Why?" he whispers. "Why would Gilgamesh want to be immortal? Who would want to be immortal?"
The answer doesn't come to Malik right away, and he isn't sure if this is unsettling or not. "Because," begins Malik, but then he stops, looks down at the top of the tome his fingers trace.
Abruptly, the weight and power of time settles down on Malik's shoulders, pouring over him like a great torrent of water. He feels the strangest urge coiling up from the middle of his chest, the strangest grip, something that almost makes him want to sob. Time. He doesn't have much of it left, does he? What has he done, sitting in Jerusalem, sitting here in Masyaf while his greatest friend is away doing grand things?
Malik looks over, meets Sef's questioning gaze. He can never tell Sef this, and he doesn't think he would ever be able to tell Altaïr either should the man have been here. He wants to fall in love too, he thinks suddenly, as Sef and Altaïr have fallen in love. He wants to know the touch and comfort of a woman, wants to know the pride of a son, a daughter, a family. It hadn't been something he ever considered until he was alone in Masyaf with Sef following his footsteps here and there, calling on him for advice, seeking him out for company.
"Because," Malik says again, "when you get to the end, you realize there is still so much left to do here, so much left that you want to do, want to see. Because you regret what you took for granted, because you long for distant days, because you are wise and know that there were so many possibilities. You are scared because you did not take them all. What if you missed something? What if it is too late?"
Sef is silent for some time, but then he says, "We all live a full life because we have lived. No life is any less complete because certain things weren't done. It is complete because it has been lived."
Smiling, Malik reaches up to affectionately squeeze Sef on the shoulder. "I see even a wise old man can be given wisdom from the young." And Sef returns the smile.
Another year passes. Gilgamesh sets out to find Utnapishtim, to question the one mortal who has been given immortality. There, he finds not a way to be immortal, but a way to be grateful of what he already has in life. O Gilgamesh, the page reads, this was the meaning of your dream. You were given kingship and such was your destiny. Everlasting life was not your destiny. Because of this, do not be sad at heart, do not be grieved or oppressed; he has given you power to bind and to loose, to be the darkness and the light of mankind. He has given unexampled supremacy over the people, victory in battle from which no fugitive returns, in forays and assaults from which there s no going back. And Gilgamesh lives as a great king, lives and dies as others have lived and died before him, as others will live and die after him.
Sef and Malik finish the story during the dawning of summer, sitting out in the Garden with a bowl of figs and some water. Malik curls baby Tazim close enough to kiss the dark-haired forehead, and he wonders what Altaïr, Maria, and Darim are doing at this very moment.
Living, he thinks. They are living.