AN: Title is a mishmashed Bible quote. Thanks for the patience re. eternal updates!
Like Silver Tried, or Gold
Sef sits at the mouth of one of the caves, in a little splinter of shade, out of the way. The desert is a lot of scrubbed nothing and then, suddenly, these hills. Maybe there are villages nearby, of the kind his father supposedly saves, with the people living in them wondering at the new half-army in their midst. His mother only just arrived two hours ago and sounds exhausted when she finds him there, fiddling idly with the silver decoration slung about his chest. He's never really known the point of it.
"Boys younger than you are finding ways to keep busy," she reminds him. "I think the horses need to be fed."
"Yes, Ohm," he says, but he doesn't move. She sighs, heavy, wilting in her Christian men's trousers and loose scarf. Even a month ago Sef might not have noticed her physical shift from soldier to mother—but he has grown, since then. He has aged beyond count.
"Sef, I'm sorry," his mother says, and squats down beside him in the sand. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. Je suis désolé. I'm sorry. Aasef. " She squints at him. "I don't know how to say it in any other languages."
Sef tries not to giggle and then he does. His mother's French sounds an awful lot like her Arabic—weird, in other words—which is fair considering his own middling English might as well be French. But it makes her happy when he tries to speak to her in her native tongue. Back in Acre he often used to try: Hello. I am the Lady Maria's son. 'Eh-low. Ma-ree-a es my muhter.
Acre. So long ago. A city lost and reclaimed and lost and reclaimed...a city like Al Masyaf?
Maria says, "You mustn't worry, though, Sef. Your father is very strong and very brave. And very stubborn. And he has Malik with him."
"Uncle Malik said he was gonna leave, after they got Masyaf back. That's what Darim told me."
Sef can't understand the expressions that muddle across his mother's face at the news about Dai Malik, but he knows instantly the fear when he says his brother's name. Knows it because he feels it too, so keenly it could crush him. Unexpectedly, and with much alarm, he has to sniff back tears.
Maria rubs his back.
"I'm a bad assassin," he whispers. "Father wouldn't ever cry. Or you, or Uncle Malik, or Darim. But…but I can't help it…"
"Of course not. Sef, all men cry."
"What if Darim's not with Father and 'Am Malik? What if we never find him and he's hurt and…why can't you go find them?" he begs, grabbing at the front of the leather wrap she wears over her tunic. She isn't dressed as an assassin at all, more like some question out of Europe. But he remembers from Acre that she dressed this way sometimes to feel comfortable—he remembers that she can switch from knight's armor to Brotherhood robes to ladies' burqa at whim, merging the three, bridging the differences. His mother is all things, and all things well. She holds him in her strange garb and he, a child again, is comforted.
"Even if I could find them, I'd only be out of step and in the way," Maria tells her youngest. "Your father and Malik…they share a mind. If I could help them there...but I can help them here. By putting some order to this exile." She smiles. "They can organize assassins in Timbuktu but they can't organize a pantry. Like all the men I've known."
"But Darim…"
"Darim is with them," she says, firm. "And if not, they'll find him. Altair is very possessive, you know. He won't stand for his son to be taken away. And Malik, also—"
"His brother died, I know."
But she says sharply, "No, you don't know. And you never will."
"But assassins always hafta be ready for…"
"Assassins, maybe," says his mother. "But you aren't only assassins. You are also my sons. People here hold martyrdom as a birthright, I've never understood it. Your blood is mine as much as your father's, and sons of my blood aren't sacrificed so easily. It will be hard, especially for Darim. He has to find his place, and my mulish husband has to let him find it. It scares Altair, though. To realize he could lose those he loves so deeply, and yet not have himself to blame."
"I don't understand," Sef whines. "We should go find him."
"You think this is easy for me?" Maria snaps, suddenly heated. "You think I want to sit here with all the children and injured men, gnawing on my nails? I have armor, Sef! And a son I cannot save. I wake up these days with the priest's voice in my ears, 'You have tested us, O God, You have tried us like silver.' Do you know how long it's been since I was in a church?"
But here she pauses, and Sef watches her change back from angry knight to mother again. A chimera like the kinds mentioned in Father's old books.
"Sometimes, if we're truly brave, we're faced with the worst of all tests, and to pass it we can't charge in on a warhorse or assassinate some king. To pass it we must trust in others."
"I just don't get it, I just really don't."
"You don't have to yet. Ce ne est pasvotre faute." She smiles, faintly. "Robert told me that once. I'd tried to fight your father and lost."
"Why did you stop trying to fight him?"
"Oh," she sighs, "he was conceited and clever and I wanted to follow him only until I could punch his face in. But mostly it was his hands."
"…His hands? What about Father's hands? Like how he's missing a finger?"
"You don't need to worry about it, Sef. Just trust in your father, and in Malik, and in Darim. And in me. We are all where we are meant to be."
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted…like that?"
Maria stands up, pulling him with her. She brushes him off before herself, then claps her hands together with a brisk nod. "Exactly like that. Darim is fine, and we'll reclaim Masyaf. Now come and help me feed the horses, brave assassin. The mount I rode here bites."
Sef adjusts his cowl over his shoulders and squares his shoulders. "He won't bite me. But I don't care even if he does."
"Your father's image exactly," Maria says. "Wonderful." Something in her voice wavers, though, faltering at the end. Sef, distracted, doesn't quite notice. His father's image exactly! And his father is so brave.
-i-
Altair's legs go numb when Ali holds the knife to Darim's throat with unnecessary flourish. He almost expects his son to scoff at the threat, but no: Darim only swallows, eyes bulging with terror. It's understandable, perhaps. The boy is young.
Abbas, supposed leader, is a step off and a step behind, looking like a wax figure painted the appropriate colors, looking hardly here at all. And Malik is murmuring fast and low, hot desperate words of wait and calm and careful Altair. The assassins posture and there is a knife to the throat of Altair's eldest son.
Years ago, he would never have been in this position. Years ago he would call them on their threat, let them slit the throat of any Brother clumsy enough to be captured. Years ago, it would never be now.
Family ties were an abhorrence, once; he does remember being that Altair, even if it's an Altair long buried. To be hamstrung by design, to open up chinks in the armor and expect the enemy not to notice, seemed foolish, seemed worse than foolish. Seemed the worst, weakest thing of all.
The Son of None was wrong, of course. The worst thing of all was in Jerusalem, behind the bureau desk, spitting venom, cast adrift with grief ringing the eyes. The worst thing was taking Malik to pieces and then watching from a bitter distance as he struggled to reshape himself into something recognizable. The worst and weakest was to be alone—hated and discounted by the only man who looked at him and saw what was true—to be alone and so powerful, and yet so useless, because in the end all his swordskill wasn't worth Malik's spit. Al Mualim's betrayal, the great humiliation of his demotion, the Apple of Eden's tricks: all bearable. But Altair alone was Altair without purpose. He'd thought himself free from human fragility, but Malik was his shield's soft spot all along.
So he learned. So he adapted. So he accompanied the Templar prisoner Maria, who knew much of her master's schemes, and noticed in her something of Malik's strength, and also something of his sarcastic wit. Altair's spats with Maria were enjoyably familiar. She was intelligent, quick to pick out the flaws in the Creed but willing, however grudgingly, to admit to flaws in her own philosophy. He found himself sharing more of his history than he'd meant to, but she wasn't smug to learn of his disgrace. If anything she was thoughtful. Altair thought at the time that Malik might appreciate his taking a thoughtful wife.
Soldier Maria, Templar-turned-Assassin Maria, Maria halfway knight and halfway lady…she was his second weakness, then, and the first he took on willingly. Malik was his blood, his spine, he could as much be a successful Grandmaster without Malik as the earth could warm without the sun. That flaw, if flaw it was, he hadn't asked for, only gripped with both hands when he saw how, without it, so much damage would be done. But Maria he chose. Maria he asked. Maria, his wife, he took to his bed.
(It wasn't quite the same, bedding men and bedding women. There was hardly any fight for dominance, not like with Malik. The passions were different. But it wasn't terrible and Maria was no shy, hesitant virgin. What he didn't know to offer her she took.)
Maria his wife was an assassin too. She and Malik could both protect themselves. Altair told himself it didn't count, then, it wasn't the same. He'd never allow himself to open up to anyone who didn't know how to swing a sword.
Then his wife became pregnant. She gave birth to his son. And when he held the newborn baby—he who had looked at Malik's fierce love for Kadar with equal parts bewilderment and scorn—his old self died away completely. What shreds of it had lingered were gone. Darim was so pink and small.
The greatest strength of all was to have a bloodline that endured generations. A life that lived on after death. Immortality. And there was no longer anything in Altair to whisper weakness, to whisper danger. Darim was neither of these things, because Darim was his blood.
Darim—Altair left him safe back at the caves. But Darim is here, bound and bleeding, and Ali holds a knife to his throat. And Altair thinks he has lost, so totally, so without preamble. And softly, so softly, hissing with glee and malice in his ear…
"It wasn't like this when I died. Altair, Altair, now what have you done?"
He was right when he was cruel. He was right.
"Well now," says Ali, "I think we should talk."
Abbas wonders.
He wonders at the true meaning of the Creed, the things permitted and the things that are true. He wonders at the true meaning of his own creed, God's creed, the holy words of the Prophet. He wonders at the naked horror on the faces of his enemies. He remembers when they were not enemies but grudging allies. He remembers a childhood of minor spats and training sessions. He wonders at that change.
He wonders why he cannot feel joy as Ali does, at the suffering of those he hates.
(But he has no strong feelings on the subject of Darim. This boy who tries to stand with a straight spine to mask his shaking is only that, a boy. There are many boys—Abbas has thought often of when he might have one or two of his own. Yes. A father, inshallah, as even Altair has become. But what do assassins know of fathers?)
Ali is talking. Ali is usually talking. Ali has not once in weeks taken the time to pray.
"This can go quite smoothly," he says. "The Apple of Eden for your son. Oh, and your lives of course, and the sworn loyalty of your assassins, but that's nothing much."
"Nothing much," echoes Malik dryly. He at least has recovered himself well; Altair hardly looks to be listening.
"Well? My knife hand is twitching."
"Are you the Master here?" Malik demands. "We came to treat with Abbas, not you."
"I'm pretty sure you came to kill the both of us. What do you think?" This to Darim, with a press of the knife. Darim makes a feeble noise, half squeak and half whine, trying and failing to keep it down. Malik blanches to hear it but his voice doesn't waver.
"Is this your decision, then?" he asks Abbas. "You agree with it?"
Abbas licks lips gone dry as sand, and he swears he hears a familiar giggle: It's nice someone takes you seriously, even if it's only my brother. "Don't play the moral wiseman with me. We're both assassins, you know what that means…"
"Oh, this is boring," Ali says with a sigh.
His hand jerks again—a wavering red line stripes its way across Darim's throat—the boy squeaks again and Malik holds up his arm—"Look," he says quickly, "we aren't fighting you, we'll throw down all our weapons,"—but then Altair apparently realizes where he is and what's in front of him. He snarls and lurches forward; Malik has to grab him by his forearm.
"Let go!" he rages.
"Stop it, Altair!"
"I'll slaughter—they—let go of my arm, goddamn you—"
"Altair, please, this is Solomon's Temple all over again. Patience, you must…"
"Patience?" the Son of None roars. "While they kill my son? Bright red, the both of them, bright red cowards." He tugs once, out of Malik's grip, then stands with nostrils flaring. If he does decide to charge one-armed Malik won't be able to stop him.
Ali says, "I won't pretend to understand what any of that means. Last chance, last offer. The Apple, please."
But now Darim finds his courage. "Don't listen to them. They won't dare do it. And, and assassins don't…death, it's not…"
"Stop talking," is his father's furious response, "when you don't know what you're talking about. Be still and I'll fix this."
"But I'm not afraid of these traitors, Father, I don't care what they do—mmf!" This as Ali pulls a cloth from some pocket and gags him. Darim fights against it but Ali is stronger and that hand with the knife never wavers. Altair is so infuriated he rocks in place but Malik's still watching, waiting for an opening.
Abbas says, "Now that it's happening I do not think I want to do this." But of course they aren't listening.
(They never listen. Only Allah listens, and lately even He's been busy elsewhere. This is wrong. But he should gloat in it! All those times when they were children and Altair laughed in his face!)
"The Apple!" he says, desperately. Desperate because there is no need to kill the boy if only Altair will see reason for once. "Or will you kill your son the way you killed Kadar? Everyone knows what kind of person you are."
Darim murmurs, undistinguishable, eyes bright. Altair looks down, at his robes, at his scarred hands. Looks back up at some fixed point beyond all of them. He could be possessed by his fury; his eyes ought to be glowing.
"Darim," he says softly. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, you know how it is," Ali says, "Boys always want to impress their fathers. Even better when they have help."
"Help? What are you talking about?"
"Oh, he told us all about it, didn't he? Sang like a songbird after a beating or two. He was supposed to keep the escape route clear."
"Escape route? We never planned an escape route. What was the need?" Altair stiffens his back. "I think you had one of your spies in the caves bring him here, you scum of the earth. Too cowardly to bow your head for the assassination! Templar tactics, Abbas."
"We didn't!"
"Kidnapping children as pawns…how many missions were you sent on to kill people who did just that? What kind of person are you? Templar coward."
"But we didn't. God forbids it. I never would-!"
"Lying filth, I'll feed you your spine—"
"Malik helped him," Abbas hollers.
Altair sucks in a breath: "What?" He looks off-kilter, a predator frozen mid-leap. Darim hangs his head, miserable. Malik says something too low to hear. Abbas gasps for air, for calm.
"Darim told us himself. He snuck after you in the night. No doubt you would have seen him yourself very quickly but Malik found him first and told him to stay hidden. Told him he could help clear an exit. Your Malik said this."
"Lies, not even clever ones…Malik is loyal." The wide whites of his eyes turn quickly to the Dai. "You are loyal," Altair all but pleads of him. It's the most pathetic thing Abbas has ever seen.
(We see Your clever punishments, O Lord…)
"Malik! These are more lies, of course, we do not betray each other. Not again."
But Malik looks so haggard. He does meet the Son of None's eyes. He does at least do that. "I told Darim he could come," he says. "He wanted to help. I let him."
A long, quiet pause. Ali looks amused by it all, happy to watch it play out. Abbas can only think of another time, another room, another, younger man screaming, You should have been the one to die!
Malik breaks the silence, touching Altair's shoulder and saying urgently, "We went on similar missions at his age. I tried to task him something safe. I didn't think he'd listen if I told him no, Altair, he's your son, he's so much like you…"
But Altair brushes him off, tugs the hood of his cowl. "So this is your revenge," he says, to himself.
"No, it's not…it's not revenge. I don't want revenge from you."
Strange how little pleasure there is in watching this happen a second time, Abbas thinks. But of course it was destined to happen. And he's always around to watch it, as though Allah was reassuring him of all he'd begun to doubt. "Just give us the Apple," he says. "Just give in, for once."
Altair nods, all but hidden beneath the cowl and suddenly quite calm. "As you wish."
"Yes, as we…really?"
"Ah, Altair," says Malik, sounding rather faint. "Wait, there's something else…"
"Shut up," says Altair. He turns a shoulder to his second, bracing against Abbas instead.
"If you think you can defeat me even with the Apple, go ahead and try," he says. "When we defended the bureaus from Templar raids as far away as Byzantium it was without any help from that thing." Altair seems lighter somehow. Damn the man, he's just been stabbed in the back and even now the fresh wounds run. Will he ever find reason not to gloat?
"Soon assassins from coast to coast will wear the hidden blade without losing a finger—can you track them down even with the artifact? I built an empire out of the Brotherhood! You sack Masyaf and…and even though half the Order despises me they, they accept me as well, they see all that I've done and…" Altair's realization comes with a grim, toothy smile, like a sign of warning. "You attacked the most personally disliked leader the Order's ever had and still you needed to hire every mercenary in the Levant to fill your ranks. Look at your army, Master Abbas. You kept the naïve novices and the bandits: where are your Master Assassins? Onzor! They chose me again."
Abbas stares at him. "I'll kill you, ya khawal, I swear I will…"
"You won't," dismisses Altair with a wave of his hand. "But assassins sacrifice, Abbas. It's…I've learned that. Our instincts are only to kill, not to save." Without so much as a glance Malik's way: "We're drawn to kill each other. You've never learned otherwise. So all you can do is what you're doing now."
And he isn't looking at his son, either, when he says, "If Darim dies today it's on your hands. And the hands that killed my son will soon be broken off their body."
"Pretty speeches," Ali says. "Boring speeches, too. Keep the Apple in the bag, please, when you pass it over. We don't need any sudden surprises, do we?"
"Altair," Malik says again, his fingers stabbed deep into his palm. "Please. Something you should know…"
Altair pulls the bag containing the Apple off his sash. "I think Ali wants it more than you," he says to Abbas. "Far more. Ever wonder why? If we're still pretending you're in charge of anything."
"You…shut up, you dog. You whore."
"From when we were children I always thought you knew more words for whore than anyone else." He cocks his head, taps a finger to his lip. Darim is so wide-eyed at this display of peacock preening (this flaring of feathers that is a pariah to the Creed and yet such a part of Altair it couldn't be Altair without it) that he's forgotten to be scared. "If you also wanted to suck me off you only had to ask."
"Be quiet!"
"Toj koo' mas. Say, 'Master, please,' before you do."
Abbas goes incoherent and red-faced. Before he can strike the son of a bitch down, though, Ali steps between them, nudging Darim along so that the knife stays at his throat. He reaches around and pulls the bag from Altair's fingers. So easy. Just so easy. Altair himself looks surprised at how little he flinches at its loss.
Malik is watching warily, not Altair but Ali and the grip he has on the pouch.
"You two," Ali clucks. "Like children." One-handedly, with a leg pressed against Darim to keep him still, he fumbles to open the bag. He doesn't give it to Abbas to open, though that would be much easier. It strikes Abbas how little he's done besides yell at Altair in all this.
"Now let Darim go," Malik demands.
Ali mumbles, concentrating, delight on his face, "Patience, patience…"
Dangerous color is creeping into Altair's face. "You have the damn thing. Keep it and release Darim."
"First I must see it."
"There was a deal. Fight me with it, it won't matter. I killed Al Mualim when he had it. But let go of my son or I'll keep you alive for days."
"Al Mualim was a fool assassin. Actually you're all fool assassins…ah, ah, Malik, keep your fingers off your daggers please. I promise you I'll cut his throat before they land. Wait one moment and I'll…" The drawstring finally slackens. Ali, beaming so wide his face could crack, peers in. "Yes…I can't wait to feel it…"
Altair frowns and even distracted by angry embarrassment Abbas is confused enough to say, "It should cut straight through the bag, your fingers should tingle just being near it—"
"Oh, fuck," Malik mutters.
Ali, staring into the bag, has turned multiple interesting colors. The knife he keeps at Darim's throat suddenly wavers. Darim cries out behind the gag and another shallow cut begins to bleed.
"What are you doing?" Altair bellows, at the same time as Abbas, uneasy, says, "Ali, there was a deal…"
Only Malik says nothing. He presses his hand to his forehead, hunched like a man with a bad headache.
"What is this?" Ali asks—shouts, more like. His smile is gone, his cheery malice is gone. Instead there is an ire more than a little flecked with fear. "What trick is this? You'd play games with his life?"
"I'm not playing games. What are you talking about?"
For answer Ali turns the bag over in his hand. Its contents slip out, crack hard against the tile by his foot. Its contents: a brown rock, round, dirty, of decent size.
Abbas feels his heart stop beating. Malik curses, bites at his lip. Only Altair rises to meet Ali's temper: "What sorcery is this?"
"You thought I wouldn't check. You thought I wouldn't check and you'd get the brat back for free." Ali sneers.
Altair pats his sash, crazily. "The Apple of Eden is always there. I always carry it with me."
"I'm supposed to believe someone stole it from you? From you? The great Eagle of Masyaf? The man who can see through people and read their minds? The man who, what was it, has assassins spread as far as fucking Byzantium can't keep a pickpocket out of his robes?" Ali spits at Altair's feet. "You thought to make a fool of me, assassin filth."
"There was no need to trick you. I was going to kill you right off."
"Then where is the Apple of Eden?"
Altair is speechless. But Malik says, "In the desert where I left it."
His comrade whirls on him. "You what?"
"I took it from you. I knew…no…I was afraid you wouldn't be able to keep from using it. I was afraid you would use it and bring Kadar back again." He shakes his head. "We have spent our entire lives as assassins killing without it. We never needed it."
"But I would have noticed. You aren't so great a spy that I wouldn't have noticed! When did you…?"
Malik raises an eyebrow. But Altair has never heard the word shame before and is only enraged.
"Is there anything you have told me? This was always your plan then, since Kadar…always since Kadar! You want to take from me what I took from you."
"No. I never did."
"Never?"
"Once, when I was angry, maybe. A different life, Altair! We were both different then. I took the Apple only to…"
"My son! You brought Darim here."
"I didn't…"
But Ali has no more tolerance for their bickering. "The Apple, now," he says in a voice unlike any Abbas has ever heard him use. With his hair puffed past his ears and veins bulging in his neck he looks more demon than man. "Right this second!"
"We don't have it," says Malik hurriedly, "but I'll tell you where it is."
"What good will that do me? You think I'm that dumb? Yes, you'll tell me and I'll go to look and, oh! what a surprise! No Apple of Eden there. And no hostage for me, either, and probably a pair of assassins hidden in the trees!"
"I'll bring it to you."
"You'll vanish with it to some hidden pit in the desert."
"Not if you still have Darim as a hostage." Altair snarls at this, but Malik talks over him. "Keep him here with you. Unharmed," he warns at the boy's muffled protest. "He'll be a guarantee that we'll come back and a shield against us using the Piece of Eden. Kill him if we're gone longer than two hours."
Ali considers this, in better moods already, refreshing his grin. With his free hand he ruffles Darim's hair. "Interesting. Life means so little to you."
Abbas finds he is holding his breath, waiting for Altair to resist. But the half-breed looks half-mad with disgust and his impotency.
"I'm going to send some guards with you," Ali announces then, and Abbas winces.
"Fine," says Malik. "As many as you'd like."
"A dozen, I should think will be enough."
"No," Abbas cuts in, "actually Altair alone could easily…"
"Could what? Do you still fear him, Grandmaster?"
"I'm telling you, twelve guards or a hundred won't be enough."
"Twelve guards, and if you both aren't back within two hours I will dangle the brat's body off the highest tower."
"Ali, wait."
"And it won't be a cut throat. I'll give the little bitch what his daddy likes before the end."
"That is not the Creed-!"
"Grandmaster!" Ali sings out. "I do not care, right this minute, about your goddamned Creed! Guards!" Masked mercenaries drip out of shadows and doorways, burly men overloaded with weapons. Not an assassin's sash to be seen. "Go with them," Ali says, "and find it. Keep it in the pouch. No one touches it but me. And be back on time or I swear you'll be burying a daughter, not a son."
Altair, still drawn up and puffed out like a peacock for all that he is useless, only flicks his hidden blade. Malik says something to Darim, something about being brave, but Ali interrupts with a reminder that their time is limited, their choices moreso. He talks to the two great assassins like they were wayward children: hadn't they better go?
They drop their weapons down and leave, walking through the main entranceway trailing guards like novices off on a practice run. And Abbas watches Darim squint against tears the minute his father is out of view.
-i-
The old man knows it is time when the assassins come up from Masyaf, four of them not even dressed the normal way, and start asking the villagers questions. Odd questions, not about loyalties or traitors—not this time—but about hidden things, lost things, old wives' tales and Sufi myths. About little slivers of gold and whispers late at night. They go through the brothel carefully, opening old trunks and digging through piles of slippery brocades, but ignore the women inside: not for harlots have they come but for something else entirely.
They ignore the old man's house, because it is such a mean little hut on the outskirts of nowhere, and because they don't recognize him as the troublemaker from last time. They see only a doddering fool lurking by a tree.
He's fortunate, all thanks to Allah, but it's a warning nevertheless. Will he be so fortunate the next time they come back? When they realize there's one house left to search? It doesn't sound as though they truly know what they're searching for, but their new Master is mad: everyone says it, especially around the old man, because they forget his sight is better and his hearing never left. The new Master is tormented by ghosts. And in his madness he neglects everything but the search for some strange toy…
The old man thinks of his son. I want to show you something, the boy had written. Only you. I don't know what I've found.
The power over life and death is what he found—but a corrupted power. The assassins are bringing back each other's dead now, tormenting souls surely longing for rest in Paradise. They are so foolish. The old man was so foolish.
Yes, it is a warning. Three days after the suspect assassins leave he wakes before dawn, takes out his little golden piece and wraps it tight in an old shirt, before tucking it under his robes, against his body. He swears he can feel its heat even through the fabric, even against flesh withered mostly numb by age.
They will all come back, a voice hisses, but he is expecting it this time.
"All things are possible with God's grace," he answers as he steps out into the predawn murk, letting the door to his house bang shut behind him.
They will come back. We who came before…we who gave them their paltry lives…! You will listen to us! The slaves are meant for the Master. They will come back!
"Maybe," says the old man. "But come back how? Like that boy they saw in Masyaf? That demon ripped from God? It's too high a price," he chides, thinking oh my son oh my boy I wanted to save you it's been so long. "Sitting here all these years with a hole in my heart. Can't blame you, I guess. It was my mistake. But it'll be an even bigger mistake to let them find you. They'll bring everyone back wrong and they won't even care."
The shard hisses at him, both entreaties and curses. But the old man has waited for half his life and now he knows the time has come to stop waiting for good. He takes the main road down to Al Masyaf with determination in his aching knees. There is one safe place left for the shard that he knows…
-i-
Altair and Malik walk together, as they have done all their lives, but this time it is different. Or is it? Different and yet—they go back and forth like betrayal is a child's game, first him and then you, proper children taking turns. Different and yet the only difference is this time the blame squats fat and naked on Malik's shoulders. Altair's eldest…oh, what has he done?
Safest to think of this only as another mission, one complicated with conditions the way Al Mualim used to tack on extra markers for success. Find this flag. Kill this man after that one. Clear this road. Busy work never explained, perhaps important, perhaps a waste of time. Perhaps only something to keep Master Assassins like Altair too busy to smell out Templar infiltration.
This is only another mission. Kill the guards, find the Artifact. Return undetected before the arbitrary time limit runs out. Save the captive. Malik remembers Samir almost as quickly as he remembers Kadar.
Killing the guards, anyway, proves so easy it hardly takes a thought. They are just steps away from the silent village, trudging along the path where it cuts high and narrow above the indifferent river, when Altair gives a sort of sigh. Hardly even a sigh—he could be clearing dust from his throat. Their guardians don't even notice. A second later Altair is on top of one like a cat on a mouse, and Malik slams all his weight against another and sends him screaming off the side of the cliff.
No one comes rushing out from Masyaf—no one who is around to hear wants to admit they heard—but just in case the assassins carry the force of the fight around the bend and out of sight. They can do that, Master Assassins; they can push and pull the violence around them, decide where like lava it will flow and steam, or pull it around their shoulders as a cloak. There were twelve mercenary guards to start and the assassins have left all their weapons with Ali, but the fight is over before it began.
When the dust clears Malik is sitting on top of a man whose neck bulges strangely, whose eyes stare unseeing at an unfamiliar angle. The Dai's arm hurts quite a lot and he is more winded than he ought to be. Think of journeyman Malik who could climb to the tops of castle turrets for fun! He looks up at the sky he has jumped through.
Altair has the last of their surviving mercenaries caught in what could almost be an embrace, the stiff posture reminiscent of a court dance Malik once watched Maria try to teach her sons. But then the Grandmaster turns his partner around to face Malik, and pulls his hand out of the man's mouth. Malik sees the flash of silver dagger, stolen at some point in the last five minutes. It pops free in a little shower of blood and spit and two teeth. There's a dying gurgle from the mercenary.
Malik stands up, back popping, and strips his dead man of his sword. It's a cheaply made thing, not from any forge in Masyaf, but it's light-weight and that's important. It's harder to adjust to weapons not specially designed for Malik's own complications.
He goes to Altair, not sure what to say. They haven't spoken since leaving Ali gloating over Darim's smothered shivers.
"I hid the Apple near where we camped last night," he says. "If we hurry we can make it there and back in time. Then we can…" He catches himself. "Then I'll follow your lead."
"Will you," says Altair. Flat as anything. Flat as the ocean in the eye of the storm.
"I will. I hid it only because it seemed wisest, because I feared what it would do. What it would do to you. But if Darim…"
A jerked hand silences him, abruptly. Altair asks, "What was it like when I left you?"
Malik scrunches his brow. "When you…?"
"In Solomon's Temple. What was it like?"
He sucks in a wounded breath, all the while aware of time's many countless thousands of beetle feet clicking past. "Hot. Unbearable. We fought so many guards, they were in all the little passageways…"
But Altair is hardly listening. "Is that how…?" he says. "Is that when he died? Mid-fight?"
"No," says Malik. "He died in some dirty tunnel, trusting me. Trusting me to make it right."
"Trusting you? Well, of course. But did he also…"
Ah. Now Malik sees. "He said you would come back," he says, somehow. His own voice unrecognizable to either man. "He said, he kept saying…'Just wait, Akhi,' he said, 'He'll come back, you'll see. Not for me, for you.' He kept saying that. He was so damn sure of it and I don't know why, why was he so sure? You were never even nice to him. But he waited…he died waiting…"
But he has to stop. Has to stop because Altair is gazing off down the road, very still, his whole back exposed for Malik's knives: and maybe that was how Malik would have wanted it ten years ago, or even ten days ago. But not now. This stockpiling hurts everyone around them worse than they hurt each other.
"I waited, Altair," Malik says. "Ok? It was easy to blame you for failing Kadar, so I did. But it wasn't Kadar you betrayed, was it? I used to think so, but I was wrong. I was the one waiting. You should have…" He catches himself, just in time—but then thinks, This is a man whose come I have swallowed, for fuck's sake, and says it anyway: "You should have come back for me. I was waiting for you. I needed you to come back."
"I tried."
"Maybe you tried."
"But I didn't come back," Altair whispers.
"No."
"And you led my son into the devil's nest. You saw he was like me and you knew what he would try to do."
"No, that's not… Yes. Yes, I knew what he would do."
"And now…?"
"Now tell me what you want of me, Grandmaster. Altair. Tell me what to do."
Altair says: "Help me."
"Yes."
"After this you can leave and we never have to speak again. We can forget, we can try to forget. But now Darim is waiting."
Yes, thinks Malik, Darim is waiting. He's lost and in pain but he's not afraid. 'He's coming back,' he tells Ali. 'My father will come back for me. You'll see.' And there are wolves at every road-bend, and the flocks are huddled close.
"Tell me what you need me to do," he says again. Not questioning, not doubting, not wielding sarcasm like a whip. He is an assassin and his Master's will is upmost. It is true, it is permitted.
"You will use the Apple," Altair says.
"I will?"
"Ali expects it from me. He'll use Darim as shield, as you said. But he hardly even looked at you back there. He's foolish, he doesn't understand. You'll take him by surprise, maybe for only a minute. But a minute is all that I'll need."
"You want me to use the Apple of Eden." Malik's missing arm pains him, on cue. He pictures the rot of it, and the joy, the white-fog voice. He pictures the sheer, tremendous, incandescent hurt of it: hurt like oil on top of water, hurt that had layers of color at the surface and sticky dead sludge at the bottom.
He was so afraid then. Afraid to touch it, afraid to let go. If he could throw it or himself into the deepest sea to escape it, he would do so instantly.
But Altair has given him this order.
"Yes, Master Altair," says Malik, not even bothering to try for a smile.