Altair and his Past
Chapter 3: Friend or Foe?

After the training, when they were dismissed Altair headed towards the cave again, this time discussing the matter with 'The voice of Malik', "Who was that? Where did he come from?", Malik asked, the anger and confusion in his voice was present when he asked this making Altair feel all the much more suspicious in the matter, "I do not know, but I will find out one way or the other", Altair said as he started contemplating on how the methods of the new mentor were, the form was fine and so was everything about swordsmanship, but Malik had to butt in during his explanation and asked, "So why are you complaining about his methods?,"Because MALIK, he explains in poor detail making the other novices confused and it takes a long time before they get it, I - sometimes - have to explain how it is done and what to do", Altair said in great annoyance looking back earlier today and Malik just laughed at this, they continued the rest of the afternoon discussing about how Altair will get back and about the paperwork piling up and how Malik was doing it, but in the end, when they had no clue and no idea how to get Altair out of his memories, he left the cave and headed towards the dining hall of Masyaf where all or most of the assassins eat, but as he was heading there he ran into the younger Malik and they started conversation.

"Malik, I am telling you that this so called 'new mentor' is not part of Masyaf!", Altair pleaded with the younger Malik, "So you expect me to believe you know every single citizen here?", Malik asked with somewhat of a humorous tone, Altair felt annoyed at this - that Malik wouldn't believe him that the new mentor might be a Templar spy, but of course, they were only so young and just novices that none of them should believe in anything as supersticious as that, "Fine, believe what you want, I'll stick with my suspicion, let's just get to the dining hall so we can eat dinner", Altair said as he hung his head and shook it with defeat in persuading Malik, and Malik just laughed at this gesture and they continued walking until they reached the dining hall.

Once they were there they sat down next to whatever friends Malik and Altair has - and ofcourse Altair doesn't have that many friends so they just mostly sat with Malik's - so once they sat down they began eating and started chatting amongst one another, but all that stopped when another of Malik's friends sat down and said, "Hey did you hear? The new mentor was called by Al Mualim","The master? Why would he be called for that", another friend of Malik asked, "Does it have something to do with our original mentor going away on short notice?", another one asked, and that person actually had somewhat read the question on Altair's mind, "Who's gonna ask the master about it?", all fell silent to this question that Malik dared ask. After what most of them considered to feel like an eternity Altair finally said, "I will", all of them gasped at this and Malik retorted at this by saying, "Altair! What if master gets angry at you?", Altair sighed at this and gave him some time to think about that leaving the others at edge about his answer, finally he spoke,"The master will understand, after all", he said as he finished eating and wiped his mouth and stood up, I am his favorite of the assassins, am I not?", Altair said with a arrogant smirk on his face which made the rest of the novices shake their heads in a manner that said to Altair 'when will he lose that arrogance?' and just laughed and left the rest of the novices as he headed towards Al Mualim's study.

When Altair reached Al Mualim's study the young, yet somewhat old man felt his presence and said, "Safety and peace, Altair", "To you as well, master", Altair said this as he bowed his head knee to show respect, "What brings you to my study?", the old man asked with a calm yet powerful voice, a voice enought to instill fear in all assassins, even Altair at this age, "I have a question master", "Well then, what is your question, Altair?", Altair was so hesitant to ask this, but if he didn't he knew he might regret it, so he mustered all the courage to ask it, "Master... is the new mentor, the one that replaced our old one... is he... is he a Templar spy? If not, who is he?", The question made Al Mualim put on an amused facial expression, "No, he is not a Templar spy, I called him to talk about where your old mentor was and he explained that he went away to Damascus to see his wife as she is only has 2 more weeks before she gives birth, he told me that your old mentor, Hazim, wanted to stay with their child for about 3 weeks before heading back to Masyaf, Hazim even wrote a letter saying so, your new mentor is a old friend of the brotherhood, he was forced into early retirement cause of a wound a Templar gave him, if he has trouble teaching the students and the students have trouble understanding it is only because he is still learning how to teach, does this answer your question, Altair?", before Altair replied he thought 'if the master trusts him why shouldn't I? After all he is the wisest of us, and who am I to question his decisions, and he also explained to me what happened to our old mentor and who our new one is, I should just be glad that the new mentor isn't a templar spy' and he sighed then replied, "Yes master, it does, thank you", Al Mualim smiled and told Altair to head back to his quarters and Altair complied, feeling exhausted.

On his way back to his quarters he saw the new mentor and decided to tell him what he asked Al Mualim and ran towards him.
"Mentor! Mentor!", a small voice stopped the mentor and he turned around to see who was calling him, he saw Altair a little out of breath and before he could ask what was wrong Altair spoke, "Mentor, I must apologize", the mentor was confused and asked why, Altair responded and explained he thought the mentor was a Templar spy and that he killed the old mentor to take his position, the new mentor seemed somewhat surprised at this but soon changed his expression to a soft smile and said, "It is okay Altair, you also may call me mentor Arham", Altair smiled a little at this and replied, "Okay, thank you mentor Arham", "Now we have gotten this out of the way, why don't we head back to our own quarters?", Altair nodded at this and both seperated to go to their own quarters to rest after an exhausting day.

Once Altair reached his quarters he changed then sat on his bed, then got startled as the voice of Malik interrupted his thoughts,

"So at least we know he isn't a Templar"

"Yeah"

"Got any idea on how you can sneak out of Masyaf yet?"

"No, but I'll ask the others"

"And any clue on why your stuck in your memories and why it is changing?"

"No, hopefully I'll find out soon cause if I don't, I'm going to kill someone"

"Don't do that, otherwise I'll be stuck with all this work and you'll be leaving Maria and Darim alone with no husband and father!", Malik yelled, angry at Altair's reply

"I know, I know, let's just rest, after today, I don't think I'll be able to not get a headache tomorrow morning"

"Fine"

And with the conversation ending, they went to bed in their own time and place, Malik's in Altair's study and bed during the present, and Altair in his old novice living quarters inside his memories, they both knew things just got complicated and know that it'll get even more complicated the days to come.