At night, Altaïr can hear it, the noise that has started to always wake him: tick, tick, tick, tick in slow, synchronizing alternations. A cold wind brushes over him, and he shivers, feels the hair prickle on the back of his neck. Even with his eyes adjusted, the darkness is consuming, suffocating, and the dry air of Syria's desert makes him swallow, lick his scarred lips.
He knows that sound all too well.
For a time, it stops, and there's nothing but smothering silence, the smell of stone and linen, of incense. It starts again, tick, tick, but it's closer now, ticking away. Again, it stops, and again it starts, ever closer: tick, tick, tick.
Altaïr closes his eyes firmly. "Begone," he breathes, a whisper. "Leave this place."
When he opens his eyes, it is morning.
The looming shadows have retreated to the corners of the room, curling away from the light in any nook available. With a pull, the cover is gone, allowing Altaïr to relish what little bit of breeze will cool his naked skin, and then he sits up. On the floor to his left are some dribbles of blood, spots of it much like burgundy stars, withered from scarlet to rusty brown. It drip-drops to the door in little, tiny spurts, and then its trail vanishes into nothing. Quickly, Altaïr checks himself, thinking perhaps he bled unknowingly, but all of his wounds are crusted scabs, or gnarled and ancient scars.
He looks up at the blood once more and frowns.
The peculiarity is even worse in Jerusalem, more specifically at the bureau. There are times when he wakes in the garden during the night, cold and sweaty, chest heaving, nothing but the fountain's murmur rushing in his ears. Other times, he is on the horizon between consciousness and sleep, and then suddenly he is awake, swearing he felt a whispery breath fold over his cheek and ear, saying, Altaïr.
Sometimes, he dreams, and it's not about the usual heated blood and steel, and that is what disturbs him the most. There's a voice, low and heady on his skin, saying, Altaïr, Altaïr, and it brings a deep flush to the middle of his chest. He can feel nails biting at the muscles over his ribs, an arrogant growl at the base of his throat.
He wakes up to the breath of his name, his body wanting something more, something deeper than hunger.
There is another time, and it makes a fool out of him, though he knows he really is no fool. Templar guards have given him a nasty gash that bruises terribly at the edges, yellow and purple. Malik is not impressed, and the dai leaves him to ride out the fever as retribution for his arrogance.
The hard soles of boots rubbing stone cause Altaïr's eyes to flutter, and he can barely make out the hint of white and grey robes, a leather belt pinning familiar red, the rugged hand-me-down boots.
Master Altaïr.
A wry and embarrassed smile pulls Altaïr's lips tight. To be lying here, he thinks, invalid with wound and illness, stripped of the title offered up to him anyway. He inwardly curses the fever that obscures his otherwise precise vision, and he reaches out with his left hand, and the novice takes it gently.
I am always here.
The novice stands slowly after letting go, and Altaïr shifts in the pillows. "Wait," and it comes out like dust being blown off a tome. Another "Wait!" but the novice has disappeared into the shadowy bureau without a word, without a glance back. "Malik," Altaïr keens, voice hoarse, tongue dry. "Malik!"
The dai steps out, robes flaring as irritably as the man's stride. "What ails you, Altaïr?" Malik barks.
"The novice," Altaïr murmurs, lying back. "Send him back out here."
"What?" And then Malik is silent for the longest time even though Altaïr cannot see the darker man's face.
"The only novice here is you," Malik finally says. "There is no one else, fool."
"Oh," Altaïr says softly, like a sigh. He lifts his left hand, and, through the blur, he sees that it's covered in blood. He lowers his hand to his chest, lifts his ocher eyes up at the sky through the lattice.
In the bureau behind Malik, he can hear the tick, tick, tick of throwing knives.