Gah! I have trouble with formatting, I think it's fixed now, but if it's iffy somehow, let me know!

Notes: Names 'Tam' and 'Ishtheret' derived from Tammuz and Ishtar. 'Sirahidaa' is meant to be a variant of Sidon.

The feminine of 'Atlas' is 'Atlantis', therefore...

Recall, if you will, the first dream Desmond has of the lion and the eagle in chapter 4.

There is an idea here that's not mine. It was taken from Shadow Chaser's Apotheosis. Pointing it out, however, would spoil that story.

Chapter 20: L'Homme y Passe à Travers des Forêts de Symboles

Altaïr's body was like finely tuned machinery, where every muscle and every nerve was honed to flawless symmetry, all poised for strength and lightning reflexes and the death he brought. Lucy didn't know whether he had always been like this, she had had only glimpses of him, after all, meaningless snapshots of a short portion of his life. Maybe he had been honed into this, sharpened through all the centuries of existence. Neither explanation would have surprised, nor the realisation that he was not fully human, with alien blood in his veins to augment whatever other skills he had. Or perhaps he had always been like this and had come through the centuries unchanged.

She had folded herself over him, head resting on his chest where she could just barely hear the sound of his heartbeat as it slowed down to normal while her own blood was still rushing madly in her own ears. He wasn't built to be a comfortable pillow, but he he was reassuringly warm and alive under her. It always was different with him, this was not part of hiding from reality at all, it didn't leave her mellowed, not when everything about him was a reminder of where they all where, of all the things lost and gone through time and all the battles yet to come.

Lucy took a breath, let herself slide away to the side. Jungle warmth was pressing all around them, thick like a blanket and the thin sheen of sweat wasn't drying between them. She settled herself with her head resting against his shoulder, one arm and leg still thrown across his body. Strands of her pale hair draped over his chest in sharp contrast.

Sound and movement seemed muffled in the twilight created by the closed shutters locking out the sharp glare of the sun. The wood was old, riddled with slashes and a few rays of sunlight cut right through, thin, bright lines, painted like flying arrows.

Altaïr shifted a little and she watched him twist a strand of her hair in his fingers. It seemed an oddly normal gesture for one such as him, jarring her a little, even after all that had happened.

Lucy said, "I really thought they would understand."

"You upset the balance they created to protect themselves," he said. "You endangered the Brotherhood in ways it hasn't been for centuries."

She went still against him, thinking for a long moment, trying to decipher his calm tone.

"I thought you agreed with me."

She tested the thought for a moment, then added, "You stood with me. And Ezio…" she trailed off. Ezio had all but told her to go ahead with her plan, though without knowing what it was. In a way, she supposed, she had considered herself cleared, with both of them seemingly on her side. How could she have ever conceived of the possibility that the current leadership would disagree? Worse still, try to recall her orders. She could almost see them, in her inner eye, scurrying back to their hiding places, frantic in search for lost obscurity.

She closed her eyes, tried to snuggle a little closer. "Have I made a mistake?"

Had she gone and condemned them all, sacrificed everything they had achieved in centuries? Were they really dying on her word and a simple miscalculation borne of desperation and the feeling that time was ticking away, flowing away from them like so much water, too fast and elusive to hold on to? Had she acted rashly, had there been a different way?

She remembered what she had told Desmond, about the Assassins burning out for his sake. For a very long time, the possibility of defeat had been with them, had been with them from the start, she supposed, for in what war was this not the case? But it had always been a more distant fear. Of course, sometimes people died, sometimes entire cells went silent without warning and sometimes they were forced to make a narrow escape to more welcoming turfs, but it had never been like this. Were they dying in troves now, out there in the world?

She had dragged their secret war out in the open to shrivel and burn in the daylight they had shunted for so long. There was always a chance — one she had thought negligible — that by exposing them like this, she had offered the entire Brotherhood up on a silver platter to be picked off and destroyed at leisure.

And worse still, if Albin succeeded in calling them back, would the Templars remember Tassamlé and send their forces here, all their might, now roused, aimed at this one place?

She had wanted to shield Desmond from that truth, unwilling to burden him with more that he could not change, just more strain on his fraying mind. Somehow though, it was too large to keep from him, too important. Perhaps trying to protect him had been the mistake from the start, insecurity and confusion damaging his mind even more. When answers were denied him in this reality, he would look elsewhere for explanations and reassurances. And these were Assassins they had woken in his mind. There was Altaïr and Ezio, pushed to the front and all their merciless brilliance and there doubtlessly were others now, with ready-made answers from age-old lives.

"We are warriors at war," Altaïr said, as if it was the answer she had wanted to hear.

She looked up, but couldn't see his face from this angle, not well enough to read his expression. She reached out for his hand, freed her hair from fingers and cupped his hand with hers, feeling along the stump. She had always wanted to ask how it had felt, how it had been done. There was very little scar tissue there, it didn't look like a wound, or an accident. The finger hadn't simply been hacked off, it had been removed with some care. She wondered if he still sometimes felt it.

"Yes," she said. "But was I wrong?"

"Time will tell," he said in the same quiet tone.

She frowned. "You know, that's not the answer I was looking for."

He laughed. "You can worry about Albin when the time comes, not before."

"So I forced us into another war?" she asked, suddenly terrified for a completely different reason.

"I met Albin, once," Altaïr said. "Right before Denver. He is a good man, but he is not a leader. He'll do in times of crisis, but I doubt he will last."

"You could take the leadership back," Lucy said. "I don't think there'd be much objection." Not anymore, anyway, not with what she had done to them all. There was something more that she could barely put into words, picturing him at the head of some Assassin army, come at long last to set the world finally free.

He said, "I can't do that."

"Why not?" she asked. "Would Albin truly dare stand against you?"

A quick laugh. "Not for long, but that is not the point."

Lucy thought for a moment, remembered the subtle change that had happened between him and Ezio, the almost-not-there, but lingering coldness that hadn't existed before. They talked and even occasionally joked, but it seemed reflexive and artificial.

"Because Ezio wants the position?" She felt the surprise running through him, startled and amused and it was her turn to laugh. "Did you think I didn't notice? Something happened and there is no unity between you anymore, no connection. If I had Eagle Vision, I'm sure I could see it."

He shook his head slowly. "You misunderstand me. It has nothing to do with what I — or Ezio — want. We are both going to die."

She was sheathed in warmth, skin to heated skin in the afterglow, but suddenly her blood ran cold and her body pulled tense enough to snap.

Calmly, Altaïr said, "I still remember the deal I made with the Apple. I wanted to be here, to bring Ezio into the battle, because I alone wasn't going to be enough. But we were both never meant to walk away. When Desmond finds the temple and saves us, the deal is done."

She pulled away from him, wanting to see his face, to look into his eyes, but he didn't let her go. Instead he tightened his grip around her waist and turned them both around, pushed her back into the pillows and pulled himself up on outstretched arms above her. It occurred to her that he looked different than his own memories had painted him, not wildly but still changed, altered. In his own mind, his face was harsher, more gaunt and predatory; in his mind, nothing softened his features, not the sensual curve of his lips or the dark lashes that would rest against his cheeks when he slept. His eyes were bright, though, in all realities and perspectives, cast in metal now as well as ever.

"There is no tragedy here," he said. "No loss or defeat. I've been dying before, remember. There comes a time when you realise that everything you do, you do it for the last time. Can you imagine what a single gulp of water tastes like when you know it will be the last you'll ever drink?"

He leaned closer, making her breath catch in her throat.

"What a kiss tastes like?"

For all his proficiency with words he was, at the core of him, a man of actions and deeds. She had never been kissed like this and she knew she would never again be kissed like this; everything he was, put into a single touch, an entire lifetime compressed into only one, brief, endless instant.

Desmond has been to this place before, though it feels different now. He is lying on white sand and the sky above him has bleed into red and it looks like a gorgeous sunset even though he knows its the glow from the weapon, deployed on Sirahidaa, a small settlement of a few thousand people. He knows that his lover has been there, dead now in the blast, but he is too confused to summon any kind of feeling at all. He is lying on sand, but as his consciousness slowly ebbs back into his mind, he realises that he is not, that the sand was a lie his subconsciousness has conjured to keep him sane, because he is lying on corpses. On comrades and allies and friends, intermingled with slain enemies into a pile of bloodied limbs and spilled guts. In the heat, the smell is tangible, wafting about him and for a moment he wonders if he is dead as well and death simply was never what they said it was.

As he lies there, under the heat and glare of the distant weapon, his mind slowly clears. Pain follows in the wake of growing awareness. He feels like his been skinned alive, bones broken and shattered in his entire body and his muscles ripped into shards. He knows he is alive, he knows he has survived the battle, but he can't bring himself to move. He is tired and empty, burned out and even the reassuring, tight weight of the talons at his wrists don't give him back any strength the way they usually do. There is sound, faint, distant, other survivors perhaps, struggling with their plight. If only they were quiet, then he could close his eyes and rest, finally, allow himself to fall and fade away from all this suffering.

And then he hears it, distantly at first but getting closer. It makes his blood run cold suddenly, sends new lives through dying limbs. He remembers Ishtheret glowering at him across the room, like the soothsayer she sometimes tried to be pretend to be, saying, "You are a pain, Tam. You just don't know when to die." He wants to die, actually, here and now, before their pets find him and tear him apart for sure. How cruel a people must become, to let lose their vicious and armoured pet lions on a battlefield to devour all the survivors?

The sniffing comes closer and suddenly, the lion is on him. Its black fur hidden behind a layer of armour, as solid as stone and as flexible as leather. He screams as the steel-tipped claws bite into his shoulders and the maw opens wide in front of his face. Rank breath washes over him, drags him back into reality, strangely enough and he remembers his own claws, still strung to his wrists as if they had grown from his very flesh. He lashes upward, against the pain in his body and the tearing in his shoulders. The lion catches one hand in his mouth, bites down hard on the glove, the tips of the teeth just barely making it through to prink the feverish skin beneath. He screams, in pain and defiance, frees his shoulder enough so he can strike with his other hand, tears the blade into the lion's mouth, rips open the side of it and the animal keens suddenly in shock, lets go of his hand.

He pulls himself up, against the weight of the armoured beast, doesn't wait, doesn't even think, just smashes forward with both hands, through the open maw and into the back of its throat. The talons cut deep, deep enough to reach the brain and even though its sheer luck rather than skill, it dies too fast, it can't even snap its mouth closed and take off both his hands.

Panting, he lies still under the dead lion for a long time, buried now more than ever with his fallen companions. Ishtheret's words echo in his head and down the centuries. You just don't know when to die. He struggles free finally, against the pain and the tiredness and the leaden, tempting call of death. He finds the strength to stand, somewhere, is surprised his body can even do that anymore. It's getting dark around him and the cold comes in like another conquering army, the colour of the sky tints darker, bloody-red. He wants to go to Sirahidaa, wants to make sure there are no survivors, but he already knows. Nothing survived there and nothing will be able to live there for a very long time to come.

Slowly, he sets out for another direction, the only survivor from the battle and feeling like a traitor for it.

Desmond opened his eyes and watched the thin sparkles of sky he could see through the canopy of leaves above him. It takes a while until he can recapitulate where he was — who he was — and what he was doing before he fell asleep. The road had turned away from him, leading off to the west when the GPS pointed him further north. He had left the car, wedged into off into the thicket at the side of the road and hidden it as well he could. It wouldn't be difficult to find for anyone coming this way, who knew what they were looking for, but there was nothing else he could do about that. He had taken his equipment and the machete and walked into the jungle. It had been slower than he had imagined, sapping his strength in ways he hadn't anticipated. It was hot and strenuous and tiring. The jungle seemed to lap at him, snatch at his arms and shoulders and head as if it was trying to push him back. He had found a milestone a few hours in, at the centre of a small clearing, open space so unusual for the jungle he had had to cross to get there. He had decided to rest there, set up camp and regain some of his strength. He remembered leaning back against the milestone and closing his eyes…

He had curled to the side at some point, the milestone still pressed against his back. He groaned and moved, then winced at sudden stinging pain on his collarbone. He looks down in an awkward angle, to see the welts his own nails had left on his skin. "Ah shit," he grumbled. He sat up straight, breathed a little. He should get some disinfect on the scratches, just to be on the save side, but it could wait a few more minutes.

He breathed in deeply, letting the rich jungle air drive away the remembered stench of messy death. He frowned across the open space.

"I didn't know that was a real battle," Desmond said. He remembered the wayfarer from his dreams, remembered how he felt like, but he had never seen him this clearly before. Tam looked back at him and it was disconcerting. There was Altaïr in that face, the same cheekbones and strong nose. The quirk of Ezio's mouth when he couldn't decide whether to smile of smirk. Desmond saw himself there, a faint and distant echo. Tam's skin was darker, a dusted and tanned cinnamon colour; dark hair set in tight curls, eyes painted black, making their gold even sharper. He looked alien and removed, some science fiction idea of an Egyptian god, poised like snake ready to strike, haloed by the green of the jungle behind him.

He arched a brow. "There were others," he said dismissively. "But they used my memory as key for the code. A private joke, I'm sure. Enemies, even former ones, can be vindictive. But I'm not petty, so I left them their illusions. Those memories cannot hurt me any longer."

They are doing a fine job of hurting me, Desmond thought sourly, but didn't say aloud.

"Who is Ishtheret?" Desmond asked.

"A woman scorned," Tam said and shrugged. "An enemy forced to sit down and talk with us when they realised they wouldn't win the war even if they shred the planet to pieces."

"You fought them?" Desmond asked and felt the memories coming to him through the connection, faint and barely remembered, feelings rather than thought.

Tam chuckled. "I am what you are," he observed. "We all fight our battles, sometimes and by accident, we become heroes. I ended the war, I forced a truce and I got them to talk, but that created a rift among my own people. Not all of them wanted peace. Some wanted us to annihilate our enemies, to ensure that we would never be enslaved again."

Desmond stared at him. "The Templars?"

"No, not yet. The frontlines changed, later, shifted and blended in places and spread newly apart in others," he thought for a moment. When he tilted his head, Desmond saw the edges of a tattoo along his neck, it looked like the tip of a wing. "In the end, there were the Assassins and the Templars, as you understand them. But that happened much later and besides, when we discovered the Sun Cycle all our priorities changed."

"The Sun Cycle?" Desmond repeated and involuntarily looked up at what little he could see of the sky. "Like it happens now?"

"Not if you stop it," Tam said pointedly. "Otherwise where would be the point?" His expression became harder, frosted despite the jungle heat. "They set conditions, of course. Us mere mortal couldn't do it alone and once you rely on someone who think themselves gods you end up paying and paying and paying. There were conditions, cheap trickeries and traps laid at every corner. They wanted us gone, even after the treaties were signed."

Desmond eyed him, the razor-sharp deadliness of this ancestor that had carried so well down the centuries. "What do you mean?"

Tam shook his head, bared his teeth in some kind of bad imitation of a smile. "You remember when you dreamt my memories of Sirahidaa?"

Desmond just barely suppressed a shiver, his guts heaving instinctively. "Why?" he asked.

"You were screaming pretty badly," Tam told him laconically. "And sound carries like fuck in the jungle."

They broke from the jungle and Desmond had time to think that, if sound did indeed carry like fuck in the jungle, how did he not hear them approach? The point was moot, of course, he had been distracted, not entirely rooted in this reality anyway, so who was he to question? His first, panicked thought that these were the Templars, finally come for him after they had left the others dead back in Tassamlé. His instincts were still good enough to remind him of the difference, even before he startled to his feet and danced away from the milestone to gain some more freedom of movement.

The men who had stepped into the open circle didn't look like Templars. They were dressed for the jungle very much like Desmond himself, but in shabbier gear and worn clothes. Leathered, gaunt faces stared at him with a mixture of bad intent and confusion. He spotted a few of them armed with machetes, had no time to look for guns. His own machete, his knife and his gun were all in with the backpack, a jump away, but beyond his reach anyway. There was the bracer at his wrists, though, hidden under the sleeves that had unrolled in his sleep and hung low over his hands. No need to release the blades and announce their existence, they'd come out fast enough when he got close enough for the kill.

They are talons, the memory of Tam sneered as if it mattered what the hell they were called. Desmond tried to shake him off from inside his head. He couldn't handle that now. Doubtlessly, Tam would fight like a demon, but Desmond was not familiar enough with him, would miss and fail because of it. If he could call on Ezio or Altaïr, now that would make the difference. Or he'd just end up screaming on the ground again, maybe confusing his would-be enemies to the point of withdrawing? Tam sneered again and generations of Assassins agreed.

"Look," Desmond began in shaky, foreign command of Spanish that wasn't his own. "I'm just… camping out here."

They eyed him, drew their circle closer. One man stepped forward, young and worn and mean-eyed. "No one goes camping here," he said.

"I…uh," Desmond began, resisting the urge to step back from the other man, back to the milestone to press against its solidity. "I can explain, really. I have no quarrel with you."

The man pulled his teeth back and Desmond felt it, the seconds ready to snap, the violence waiting to break lose. he knew there were three men at his back, he couldn't see them, but their presence cut sharply into his perception. It was like premonition painting it out for him, how it all would go down. He could spin away from here, from this lose circle of men surrounding him. He could fly through their ranks. He had the talons at his wrists, two would be dead within seconds. He could already see them, strewn around the small clearing, bleeding into the earth. The smell was already in the air, nauseatingly mixed with the stench of so many battlefields.

And Desmond refused. These were not his instincts and not his skills. These were not his morals, either, but in that moment, he couldn't have said what they were instead. He gritted his teeth against the lure, the way his muscles pulled prepared to launch him from his place, the nerve-ends alive like in not other moment.

"I'm really sorry," he said again. "I'm just lost here. I was trying to get back to the road." He spread his arms out, tried a sheepish grin. "My girlfriend dumped me. We were on holiday and she…"

There was movement behind him and it was all Desmond could do not to snatch them man who had come to close, punch him and use him as a shield against the others. It would be so easy…

"What sort of idiot are you?"

Desmond shrugged helplessly.

The men looked at each other, considering and for a moment Desmond saw that they almost believed him, almost let him go. See? he thought somewhat triumphantly, there are other ways.

Then something hard hit the back of his head and he felt the world tilt, turn a blessed dark and enveloped him, wrapped around him. He felt his face hit the ground, but it didn't register as pain. Dizzy, he lay there for a time, had no idea how to measure it, lost in a storm of voices telling him to get up!

Desmond groaned. A weight was on his back, harshly yanking his arms back, fixing them together with something.

"We'll take you to Juan, can't risk anything here," the man told Desmond when he was pulled back to his feet. Desmond blinked slowly, against the bright lights swimming through his vision. He knew he had made a mistake by not resisting these people, whatever brand of criminals they were, they would not let him go again, they couldn't afford to let him go again. And now his hands were bound his head was hurting. He stood swaying as they rifled through his things, picked up his backpack and one briefly admired the gleaming edge of the machete. It seemed to wink at Desmond, mocking him and he almost bared his teeth back at it.

A mistake, but one he would willingly repeat over and over again. If he found no way past the slaughter, it would never end, it would just continue, spinning into all eternity. His family had walked battlefields, one after the other, centuries and millennia in the past. He had lived Altaïr's glorious skill, he had flung himself against armies in Ezio's skin and he remembered the heated thrill coursing through their bodies. He didn't doubt their goals, or their motivation, but what fool would charge men like that with making peace?

Lucy watched as Ezio crossed the roof, long, measured strides and hands tucked casually away in his trouser pockets. It was too easy to picture him, very much like this, on some Venetian rooftop, all those ages ago, the same man, the same fluidity to his movement, the same carelessly controlled strength. Sunset was coming in behind him, painting him in soft red and golden.

"You are early," Lucy said. She had enjoyed her shift, her watch. Since the Templars had gone, it was quiet in Tassamlé, quiet enough to believe that it was genuine peace that had come to this place, had returned it after all. She didn't truly want to go inside, didn't want to leave this moment to let it spin away from her like so many other things.

"I wanted to talk," Ezio said slowly. He came to stand by her side, put his hands on the rough concrete of the balustrade and followed the direction of her gaze.

Lucy glanced at him, perhaps a little too fast, too sharply to let a man this perceptive miss the revealing gesture. He said nothing of it, though, merely gave her a quick smile, dazzling, but full of teeth.

"How is Rebecca?" Lucy asked, stalling for time in which she could make up her mind.

"Better, now that she's lying down finally," Ezio answered. Something about his voice told her he had seen right through her, could read her like anyone else he had ever met. Ezio, for all his glamour and the ruthlessness it hid, was no less devious, no less shrewd in what he meant to show or reveal about himself. Perhaps he was playing them all, even Altaïr, in this way, the boyishness of him lingering about him, the easy smiles on his handsome face and the sparkle in his eyes. She had seen him shift into another man, harder and colder than this genteel mien. An Assassin, at the core of him, regardless of what else he might pretend to be.

"Don't worry about Rebecca," Ezio said. "I've seen enough of these wounds, she won't die of this one. If she keeps lying down."

"Maybe you should tie her up after all," Lucy suggested, couldn't quite keep the smile from her own face, but it barely reached her eyes.

He shrugged elegantly. "All she has to do is ask."

Lucy looked away from him, across the silent streets of Tassamlé and wondered if she should tell him the truth. Altaïr had made no attempt to swear her to silence, had not even mentioned whether he would prefer to keep it secret at all. Perhaps he even wanted her to deliver the news to Ezio, so he wouldn't have to.

"You wanted to talk?" she asked.

Ezio nodded, a calm and powerful presence at her side. He turned around, put his elbows on the concrete and settled back, utterly relaxed.

"Albin," he said simply. "Is an idiot."

"He's the Mentor," Lucy said slowly. "He is the leader. He has a right to have an opinion about what I did."

"He stands for all that is wrong with the order today," Ezio said, not trying to keep the scathing tone from his voice. "They have become rats, scurrying in the dark. I admire what you did, you took a great risk. I didn't think your kind still existed among the Assassins."

She brought her head around, too surprised to do anything else. "There are others," she said, knowing it was a weak argument. She studied his profile, he had tilted his head back, exposing his throat and letting the setting sun paint him in copper contrasts.

"Too few to make a difference," Ezio said simply. "And that is on a good day."

"You agree with what I did?" she asked carefully. Because she had nothing to say to his accusations, nothing with which to counter. Of course she could point them out, the good men and women within the order, risking life, limb and sanity every day and night of their existence. She could tell him their names and their histories and their achievements, but she had the sneaking suspicion that Ezio knew all this already and it hadn't been enough to sway him on the matter.

She saw the smile spread across his face long before he even moved. He shifted again, turned to face her. "You'll have more than just my agreement. If we survive this — and we will — I will be by your side when you face Albin and his punishment."

Lucy stood frozen in place. She had not expected this, not in a hundred years of fairy tales come true and for a moment she believed it, believed the promise and the threat contained therein. Until she remembered what Altaïr had told her, until she remembered that these two Assassins would vanish from their world in the same way they had come into it. She looked away from him, couldn't bear it any other way.

"There is something you must know," she said slowly. "Altaïr…"

He put his hand on her shoulder and she fell silent. "There is always something with Altaïr. He has his habits. But whatever he tells you when you are alone, it is only for your ears."

She blinked, slowly, barely comprehending. "You don't understand," she said, rather helplessly.

He raised his brows. "Oh, I will soon enough," he said, made a slight gesture with one hand. "There is no fun if I don't."

She opened her mouth to say it, she wanted and needed him to know. She had to thank him for his offer, after all, while there was still time, while he might still hear her. She took a breath, but again he silenced her, coming just an inch too close for comfort. Low, velveteen-voiced, he said, "Don't worry on my account, mia brava. Your shift is over, try to get some real sleep this time."

They were tomb raiders, as much became clear rather quickly. They had set up camp not far from where Desmond had rested, close enough to the road for easy access and transportation using a narrow path cut into the jungle, just wide enough to allow passage for a small truck, Desmond guessed and low-hanging branches would obscure the true purpose.

The men dumped Desmond into an open makeshift shed, tied his feet together as well and went about their business. Desmond remained lying on his side for a while, waited until their attention had truly shifted away from him. They seemed to be taken it quite well, this weird stranger dumped into their midst like this and Desmond wondered how often that happened. He struggled into a sitting position, resting his back against a few old crates and watched the camp.

He was already in Sianahk'ab, he knew, the outskirts of the town, where he had walked with the wayfarer once before. No wonder such hunting grounds attracted scavengers of this sort. He saw them now, three of them, leaning over a crude wooden table, sorting through artefacts, packing them rather carefully and staking their boxes off to the side. Desmond supposed they were waiting for this Juan and his truck. He didn't quite know why they had to wait it out. Surely, they would kill him, anyway? What other choice did they have, when he had seen what he had? When they had taken him into their camp? So why were they waiting?

The Assassins at the back of his mind still bristled collectively, but it was all Desmond could do to suppress a laugh and he knew perfectly well how insane it would have sounded. Here he was, great and prophesied scion of legendary warriors, killed by a handful of criminals in the jungle while the world ended. Ended in fire, Tam whispered fiercely. Ended in flames. I saw my home burn, all the islands scorched and lost forever, the oceans boiling around it.

"What was it called?" Desmond asked.

The archipelago known as the Daughters of Atlas.

"Yeah, thought so," Desmond nodded to himself, grinning like a self-satisfied maniac.

He couldn't stay here, it felt nice, this plunge into insanity, but he didn't feel crazy enough to make it last. He still cared for things in this world, Ezio had made sure he remembered that amidst all the blood and the burning loss. The feeling was slipping through his hands, through grasping fingers. If he went crazy, truly and irrevocably, maybe this all would be over? But it was an empty hope, wasn't it, because it certainly had not ended for Sixteen.

They had used belts to bind his hands and feet, the stiff leather didn't fit too tight to his skin, but bit sharply into it whenever he tried to wriggle free. He relaxed, breathed and tried to order his thought. The camp was small, two small tents, hemmed in by greenery on two sides. A campfire in the centre of the open space and the boxes and table with the artefacts. The men had scattered around, five now packing the artefacts, another by the fire and one had settled himself a little further to the side, going through Desmond's things at leisure. There had been two more that Desmond couldn't see from his position, maybe off taking a leak or taking a nap in one of the tents. Remember them.

Suddenly, without warning, Altaïr pressed up against him from behind and it was all Desmond could do not to flinch. He turned his head to look, but Altaïr was entirely too close and this was not the man he knew, not now and not then either. This Altaïr was younger, before his pride had been broken. He wrapped a hand around Desmond's waist and pushed his face too close to his ear, chuckling darkly. It was a lover's touch, sensual and intimate, but the words, the words were different, whispered with hot breath into Desmond's ear, words of how easy it would be to kill them all. How easy it was to crush a larynx or snap a neck, drive your fingers into your opponent's kidneys and he will go down; break their legs and they will not pursue you even if they do not go into shock. You can deliver a kick to the tailbone, habibi, make them scream. Child's play to twist limbs from sockets, snapping joints and tearing sinews. See that man? With his back to you? You could topple him over, push his face into the fire before he ever knows you are there, you can do it even with your hands bound. You could do it half-blind and barely conscious.

Altaïr slipped his hand down Desmond's arm, traced the shape of his knuckles with his fingers until he came to rest on the belt around his wrists. Such carelessness, Altaïr observed sniggering. Such a weak binding. Do they not know who you are? Indignant hiss in his voice. How can they, when you hide your face? Discretion is useful, but not quite as satisfying when you can kill them as they look into your eyes.

Desmond swallowed, his throat constricting with the images insinuating themselves in his mind.

They didn't take the hidden blades. Altaïr observed. They must want this so very much.

"They are talons," Desmond corrected and Altaïr only chuckled again. Twist your hand, ya gamil, I will show you. Altaïr's fingers were back at his hands, wrapping around him. The stump was dull red, Desmond could see it now, angry puckered skin and when Altaïr moved, a quick, sharp pain cut across Desmond's own finger, but if the phantom shared the pain, he gave no indication. His grip was hard and startlingly real. He had Desmond pull one hand back, as far as it would go. Like this, just like this.

From this angle, it would be easy to activate the blade and sever the belt holding him. It would still graze him, though, sheer over the skin of his other arm. Altaïr reached forward again, pushed fingers between Desmond's arms. Think of it as a caress, al-Muḥibb.

The blade came free, brushed over Desmond's skin and severed the belt. Desmond hissed with the sharp pain as the blade slid over his skin and the edge nicked his knuckle. The belt fell away and for some reason Desmond breathed better again, freer, as if other bonds had fallen away from him as well and his head had cleared for the first time in what felt like an eternity already. It was deceptive, it must be deceptive. He still felt Altaïr beside him, but when he reached down to free his feet, Altaïr was gone and Desmond felt alone. No whispers in his head, no sneers, no anger at some perceived indignity, some slight against the honour of his entire bloodline. They were silent, it seemed, and impatiently waiting.

Desmond slipped to his feet smoothly for all the way his muscles had cramped up while he had been bound. The world painted itself in sudden sharp relief, painful to behold but with a clarity it had never held before. Distantly, he thought he was grinning again, didn't want to know for sure, couldn't tell. Teeth bared, anyway.

The man by the fire died first. Desmond collided with him, held his shoulders and toppled him over, no resistance with the shock and the moment spun away again in desperate shrieking as the flames ate at the man's hair and face and clothes. Desmond jumped over him, felt the flames against his legs momentarily and felt its grip let him him. It seemed a deliberate gesture to him, a salute by the fire it its better. The others were startled, but confused more than anything. Desmond fell on the man by his backpack, who had put the machete aside for himself by the looks of it. The man stared wide-eyed at him, shock freezing him in place. Desmond gripped his face in both hands, pulled him up a little, felt the vertebrae come lose. He twisted the head to the side, snapped the neck like a twig.

Yelling reached his ears as if from a great distance. He wasn't sure what it meant, whether it had anything to do with him. He snatched the machete from the ground and met the next attacker who came at him with bare fist and the expression of a wild animal. Desmond ducked low under the first blow, brought the machete around, held his ground against the sudden weight against his arm until suddenly the pressure broke and shirt and skin split apart. The man went down gargling, clutching his slit belly.

Desmond danced further, snapped his left hand up and released the hidden blade, let it eat a man's eye and pulled back. He twisted to the side, threw his full weight into the next opponent, bore him down under him. He brought the machete around like a lever, flattened one hand over the blade and pressed it down, watched as the gleaming blade sank through the man's throat. The man twitched under him, helpless flaying. Desmond hadn't even noticed he was struggling. He stood back up, felt something wet trickle down the front of his face, but didn't look to see the blood the severed artery had sprayed over him.

The other men were clustered with their back to one of the tents. One had pulled a gun, but it was lowered and Desmond could see, in this new sharpness of his eyes, that the safety was still on, that the man lacked the presence of mind to think of what he had to do with it. Another, half-hidden behind his comrade, made the sign of the cross.

Cheap superstition! Desmond barked at it and licked his lips as he took a step closer, watching with a measure of foreign satisfaction as they retreated from him, pulled closer together as if that made even a shred of a difference.

Remember.

Desmond jerked his right arm up, elbow first, felt it connect with a chin. He whirled around, slammed his fist into the man's face as he began to topple, groaning. He brushed the man's feet away from under him, caught him by the arm as he fell, used the awkward balance to step down hard on one knee. The man howled and crumpled into a heap when Desmond let him go.

Desmond turned his head, lifted the machete, pointed. "I see you."

The last man stood behind the shed where Desmond had been. He held a machete of his own, had clearly been about to edge around the open space to come at Desmond's back.

Desmond took a step back until, picked up his backpack. He grinned at the others. "Your lives are mine," he announced, grating Spanish in his mouth. He had never spoken that language before, he barely understood himself what he was saying. It didn't matter, they did.

He shouldered the backpack, glanced around to orient himself and saw the wayfarer standing on the forest pathway. Desmond gave him a nod and an affirmative smile.

"I'll come and collect them later," he announced and laughed. "No time to waste, you know how it is. The world won't save itself."

He laughed again and turned away. There was a prickle at the back of his neck and Desmond almost wished someone would put his words to the test, found the courage to challenge him, so he could enjoy smashing them to pieces. But he was right, there was somewhere he needed to go, before the flames came down on all of them.

The jungle loomed, it opened its maw and swallowed him.

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers

Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;

L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles

Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

(Nature is a temple where living columns

Let slip from time to time uncertain words;

Man finds his way through forests of symbols

Which regard him with familiar gazes.)

— Charles Baudelaire, "Correspondances"

Italian:

Mia brava, my brave one

Arabic:

habibi, beloved

ya gamil, beautiful

al-Muḥibb, the lover

(Habibi is harmless, it can be used among friends, family, lovers, whatever. As for the other two, they are as slashy as they sound and didn't I have loads of fun with that)

I don't speak either of these languages!