Dear Malik, I hope you are okay. There are a lot of questions rushing through my head right now and I just wanted to ask... Have you ever reached a point wherein you wanted to kill Altaïr? If you have already encountered this question, my deepest apologies.

Safety and Peace, Michi


Safety and peace, Michi.

I apologize for taking a little while to respond, things are quite busy, as I am certain you can imagine. I'm afraid that I spend much of my free time these days catching up on paperwork, but other than that I suppose I am doing well.

You pose an interesting question. I have a couple of answers to this, so I will discuss both.

I have figuratively wanted to kill Altaïr many a times and I have frequently told him as such. When we were younger, this usually meant we were on a mission together and he did something I deemed foolish.

For example, I remember when we were in a mission in Acre. The two of us were probably around twenty, so this was several years before Altaïr became a Master.

At lower ranks, assassins often find themselves doing reconnaissance for the higher ranked members of the Brotherhood. Yes, we would still go on actual assassinations, but information gathering was not at all uncommon. It would not be until you became a Master that you would solely do assassinations.

Altaïr and I were to retrieve information from a man who had been spreading false information about the Brotherhood, specifically whether the Crusaders or the Saracens were behind it. Normally in these cases, we would listen to whatever the man was saying once we located him before following him to a secluded location to interrogate him (often by beating him up).

Despite this being the usual way to handle these sorts of situations, Altaïr decided that the best course of action on that particular mission would to be to approach our target in broad daylight and start punching him without even listening to what sort of lies he was spreading.

I am fairly certain that he was just tired and wanted to get back to Masyaf as soon as possible (honestly, I didn't blame him), but that was no excuse.

Of course, all of the guards in the immediate vicinity began to swarm us and it took us ages to lose them. On top of that, our target went into hiding for four days afterward so we couldn't find him, and made sure that he had extra guards surrounding him when he finally felt safe to go out into public again.

I was, understandably, furious. Of course I didn't actually try anything, but I took great pleasure in imagining tripping Altaïr when we were running from the guards, or throwing a dulled throwing knife at him while we were hiding out in the bureau, waiting for the city to return to business as usual.

Nowadays, we still fling barbs and the occasional throwing knife at one another, although there's no real bite to them any more. The only real times we get angry at each other anymore is when we have some minor dispute about paperwork. Altaïr is no more a fan of it than I am, and as such he frequently (and childishly) give me more.

Don't get me wrong; Altaïr never asks me to do anything that he himself would not do, but he often finds himself giving me a lot of work to do so that he can spend more time with his family, and I do not begrudge him of that. Every now and then I have to sit him down and try to keep him supervised so he doesn't try to sneak off to flirt with Maria, play with Darim and Sef, or stare into the Apple. In fact, that's the situation we find ourselves in right now; he is in the corner, going over reports while I am answering some correspondences.

The only time I can think of when I literally wanted to kill Altaïr was when I was recovering in the infirmary following the disastrous mission at Solomon's Temple. I suspect that this is the answer you were expecting.

I deeply regret how I felt back then, although I was feverish. On my way back to Masyaf, I kept myself alive out of spite; I would make Altaïr realize what he had done. After that, I didn't really care if I lived or died. I was in a very dark place and I wanted to die as I didn't see the point of living anymore. I had assumed that Altaïr had been executed for breaking the Creed, as that was the usual punishment. People that broke the Creed were executed; any who broke the rules in other fashions (such as stealing from another assassin or getting drunk while out on a mission) would receive a couple of lashes to the back with a dulled whip, intended to bruise, but not maim.

After telling Al Mualim what had happened during the mission, and how Altaïr broke all of the tenants of the Creed, I had demanded his life be taken in exchange for Kadar's. I had gone half mad from rage and pain at that point, although I expected his life to be taken anyways.

When I found out that Altaïr was still alive, the remaining tendrils of fever were still clinging to me and my mind was clouded with grief. I was so angry that Al Mualim was favoring him once again. Why was it that Altaïr always got such special treatment? I imagined killing him myself and I actively wanted to.

Once the fever passed completely and I was deemed well enough to leave the infirmary, I regained sense and knew that it would not be right to kill Altaïr, no matter how justified I believed it to be. I would not break the Creed and (as I thought at the time) lower myself to his level. If Al Mualim had found something in Altaïr worth redeeming, who was I to distrust his judgement?

Instead, I returned to that mindset that I had had on the way back to Masyaf… the anger that I felt. I would force Altaïr to realize the extent of what he had caused. I would make him realize that not only had he put me in a position that had caused my younger brother to be killed, but also one that made me lose my position as an assassin and become crippled for life.

The first time he returned to Jerusalem after I had become Dai, I had imagined setting up a trap that would fling knives at whomever next entered the bureau. It was fun to imagine, in a twisted sort of way, even if I would never enact upon it.

I cannot say that my thoughts were completely rational. Once again, I was in immense physical and emotional pain. I cannot deny that it was my line of thinking, though.

As time progressed, though, I began to see that Altaïr genuinely seemed remorseful and looking for redemption and I, in turn, tried not to allow my darker emotions towards him cloud my judgement more than it had to and actually see the progress that he was making to become a better person.

Yours,

Malik Al-Sayf