"Well, here we are," Zafar announced, setting his crates on the ground with exaggerated caution.

He had been warning me constantly about the frailty of his belongings, thus preventing me from being able to enjoy the beauty of the city. Instead, I had to spend my time focusing on the bags I had been given to carry. But I was in no position to complain. After all, he was letting me stay in his home.

We had gotten past the guards with ease, minus the incredible tension radiating from Zafar. Once in the city, he led me through crowds of beggars and merchants until we arrived at a cramped, smelly alley, which just happened to mark the entrance to his home…I may or may not have shrieked when a few rats showed up to greet their company.

Presently, Zafar was digging through his pocket for a thin metal block. The door that loomed in front of him looked ancient. Very ancient, like it had been there while the dinosaurs walked the Earth. Mossy vines twisted over its neglected handle, rendering it useless, and the foul stench of the alley ate at its boards like a disease.

"What are you doing?" I asked, peering over my luggage at the metal object he was fiddling with.

He smiled wryly and stuffed his entire hand, with the metal piece, through a worn hole beneath the door's handle. "Got no key. Can't trust those guards."

"Huh?"

I watched as he wriggled his wrist, carefully maneuvering his hand behind the door. What was he doing? Suddenly, there was a loud creak as some wooden mechanism gave way on the other side. Slowly, without any eagerness to proceed, the door swung open, singing a terrifying solo of pain.

Zafar pulled his hand away and slid the metal block back into his pocket. "No guard has ever been able to break in here," he chuckled proudly. "Never."

"What did you do to the door?" I wondered aloud.

"There's a wooden lever on the inside that can only be lifted by way of my fancy metal key here." He patted his pocket happily.

"Why only that key?"

"Now, that's a secret," he grinned.

He certainly was in high spirits now the that guards were out of sight. I couldn't help but wonder about his history with them, but I figured it better to keep my curiosity to myself. Besides, there were more interesting things to think about at the moment, like his…unique abode.

Furious sunlight shown through the musky building's only window, which smiled down at us from the highest part of a wall, casting a soft golden beam about the room. The entire place was caked in a mountainous layer of dust, most likely the product of months of disuse, and there were shelves upon shelves of glass vials, jars, and decanters, each with its own unique opacity and hue.

In the far corner of the room peeked a ratty tapestry, which was the door to Zafar's 'bedroom'. This tiny crawlspace consisted of a stack of rugs with a stained, yellow pillow, an opened bottle of soiled alcohol, and a decorated incense burner.

"Just set those bags over here," he instructed, wiping his hands on his robe after placing his own crates in the indicated corner. "I don't have an extra bedroom, but I could lay out some rugs for you in here. It should be comfortable enough." He scratched his head doubtfully.

What could I say? No? I was willing to take whatever I could get. So what if I had to sleep on a bunch of old fabric? It was better than dirt. At least, that was what I thought before Zafar emerged from the back of the room with a stack of what might as well have been mushy concrete.

He cleared a spot under the window and dropped the 'mattress' in a neat pile on the floor. I stared at it anxiously, then at the dirt flooring, then back again.

Don't burn you bridges, Sarah.

"Thank you?" I coughed, warding off a storm of dust that erupted from the moving fabric. It came out as more of a question than a statement, but Zafar took it with the same humorous acceptance that he took nearly everything.

"Of course! I'll be unpacking if you need anything. Just don't go wandering around in the streets unless you want to get yourself killed. Those damn guards…"

He continued to rant as I perused his assortment of glass containers. I could have sworn one of them had a squid in it, but for sake of my fear of nightmares, I chose to believe otherwise. I would be sleeping in this room after all.

"Zafar?"

No response.

I shrugged. He was too busy sorting his belongings to hear me, so I decided to try out my new bed. With a considerable amount of caution, I flopped myself down on the thick stack of coarse rugs. It came at no surprise whatsoever that my back screamed in protest at the rocky fabric, but after a few minutes of manning up and crushing all of my weight into it, I finally received a notion of comfort from its relentless depths. The only way I was able to remain sane was by reminding myself:

It's only temporary. It's only temporary. It's only temporary…

Suddenly, the hideous creak of the door flattened the silence in the room and a plump lady with wild dark hair flung herself inside.

"Zafar!" she cried, panting horrendously. "Laleh told me you were in town! Oh, thank Allah she was right!" The frightened woman whipped her head around spastically, her eyes wide with the memory of something terrible.

"What is it?" Zafar pressed, his humor tangled into concern. "What's wrong?"

"I-It was a guard! H-He was hurting one of our girls and…a-and t-this m-"

"Calm down, woman," Zafar soothed rather unconvincingly, for there was obvious anxiety in his tone.

"Taheeb, you must come with me!"

Zafar was already packed and out the door before she could finish her sentence, leaving me familiarly alone and confused. If the woman had noticed me, she made no sign of it, nor did Zafar give me any indication of his return. Once again, I felt unbearably lost and out of place.

But who was I to be so selfish? Someone in the city was in terrible danger, apparently. I sighed and slouched back into my concrete bed, staring up at the shrouded ceiling as if it held some clue to my very existence. There had to be some reason why I had been so lucky to be thrown into this mess, but it all seemed so random, like my presence had nothing to do with anything in this realm. I was like a ghost. A pointless, lost ghost.

~.~.~.~.~

"Open that door! HURRY!" Zafar's youthful voice rang from the alleyway outside.

I jumped at the noise. It had been maybe half an hour since he had disappeared with the hysterical woman. Truth be told, I had grown weary of the silence, but nothing compared to what havoc came barging through the doorway and on the large wooden table in the middle of the room.

From the scummy alley emerged a very strained-looking Zafar with a blood-soaked body in his arms. At his sides were Laleh and the plump woman from before. He flew straight to the table and lay the body on it's back with incredibly dexterity. It was a man, but his features were rendered completely undefinable in the commotion of scarlet that played upon them. He was bleeding out. It didn't take a doctor to notice that.

"Grab that bottle!" Zafar ordered to Laleh, who was standing at the ready beside a shelf.

While she searched for the remedy he had pointed to, he was busy stripping the man on the table. Completely.

I gasped and tried to look away, but I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. Even beneath his clothing he was unrecognizable. His skin had gone from dark tan to red, and I was terrified as I was mesmerized.

Zafar discarded the soiled garments and pulled a massive stash of cloth from a nearby shelf. After soaking the dying man in the pale liquid Laleh had retrieved, he began the arduous task of bandaging the open wounds on the his bare skin. To me, the man looked like one giant wound. I simply could not fathom how Zafar was able to pinpoint each specific spot of interest like a tour guide in a national forest. If the scene before me did not prove that he was a doctor, then I didn't know what could.

Now I was able to understand his humorous attitude, which was completely missing at present. He held such an outlook to keep himself sane, much like an office worker who parties whenever he has the chance. Zafar had to put up with this. A man was dying on his table and he still managed to keep a straight face and a steady hand. In this moment, all of my resentful thoughts towards his questionable behavior vanished and I couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy towards him. So what if he had to let loose every now and then? The man needed it.

I watched in amazement as Zafar worked, every once in a while asking for this bottle or that herb, until eventually it was over. He stepped away from the table he had spent hours slaving over and rubbed his eyes painfully.

"He's going to be okay," he whispered weakly.

"Oh thank Allah!" the plump woman sobbed. "Thank Allah…"

Laleh turned her back towards me and bent over her raised hands, twitching slightly. I had the inclination that she was crying, but didn't want to show it. Why though? Who was this man on the table? Why was he so important?

There were so many things I wanted to ask, but the room was so stained with emotion that my lips seemed to sew themselves together, preventing me from adding to it.

Zafar pulled a piece of old parchment from a book on the floor and rummaged distantly through his crates for a quill and ink. When he had collected all of this, he leaned over the table and scrawled something on the torn paper, signed it, and handed it to the plump lady.

"This must be delivered as soon as possible, you understand?"

She nodded quickly. "Yes."

Without a second thought, she turned on her heels and half-ran out the door, leaving it open behind her. Zafar then turned to Laleh.

"Laleh, go home."

She straightened herself immediately and sniffed, dropping her hands to her sides. "I plan to, Zafar. I just need a minute to collect myself."

"Well, take all the time you need. Looks like I'm going to be in town for a while."

Finally, I was noticed. Zafar gradually grazed his eyes upon me and smiled tiredly. "There's some food in these crates if you get hungry. I'm going to sleep."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Altair! What are you doing?" Malik called, racing for Masyaf's massive gates.

Altair was busy mounting a slick charcoal steed when he heard his friend's voice splitting through the normal traffic of the town.

"What are you doing?" Malik repeated, stopping a few feet from him.

"I need some time to think, Malik," he answered, lifting himself carefully onto the horse, wary of his wounds.

"There are more practical ways to do that, Brother!" Malik nearly choked. "Your wounds are still fresh!"

"Please, Malik. Don't make this difficult."

Altair's voice was calm and collected. He was leaving whether Malik consented to it or not. The bustle of Masyaf was barring down on his thoughts and he knew the only way he would be able to think clearly would be to ride along the cliffs, something that he enjoyed quite often, wounded or not.

Malik wasn't naive, and though it pained him to do so, he nodded resignedly. "I cannot tell you what you may or may not do, Altair. But as your friend and Brother, I can ask you not to endanger yourself like this."

Altair smiled. "I'll be back soon, Brother."

"Safety and peace be upon you, Altair."

~.~.~.~.~

After riding along the sands for a few hours, Altair was beginning to feel a little more at ease. He had been pondering Malik's solution to balancing emotion with focus and decided to let it be for the time being. Currently, he was more concerned with the missing girl.

As much as her presence annoyed him, he couldn't help but feel incredible sympathy for one in her position, which was the real reason he had decided to leave Masyaf. He had hoped by some random stroke of luck to run across her sitting in the road, waiting for him to scoop her up and take her back to the fortress with all the assassins.

It felt like centuries ago that he had promised to keep her safe, then broken that promise, which was why he longed so badly for her to show up unbruised and smiling. His emotion was sweeping over him like a mighty wave, stabbing him with guilt at the suspicion of her death, which would have been so easy for someone to accomplish. He shook his head, ignoring the pain that ignited in his shoulder.

As he squinted against the setting sun, he began to make out the contours of a horse in the horizon, climbing the cliffs from the road to Damascus. Was it the girl? He froze, his vision becoming clearer as the mounted silhouette became closer and clearer. Finally, he could see perfectly well who was riding towards him.

"Hey!" the plump rider called.

It was a whore by the looks of her torn skirts and bright face coloring, which was slightly startling. One rarely saw them wandering the roads. They usually stuck to the darkest alleys of the cities, not the wilderness. But what really surprised Altair was that this whore had yelled for him. Or at least, he thought she had meant him. With a quick glance backwards, his suspicions were proven correct. He was the only one on the road.

"Hey!" she cried again, desperation clear in her tone.

Altair's lip twitched distastefully. What did she want with him? The woman sped up until she was just a few feet away from him, at which point they both came to a screeching halt.

"What do you want?" Altair questioned, trying to sound utterly disinterested.

Her tone was still urgent. "You! You're an assassin, aren't you?"

Altair ignored her, staring gravely. This was all the reply she needed.

"One of your kind was injured very badly in Damascus. He is being cared for by Zafar Hadad. H-He's a doctor. He gave me this letter to give to the assassins at Masyaf." She produced the battered parchment that Zafar had written on from her pouch, her hands trembling.

Altair took it as casually as possible, his own hands beginning to tremble. There were very few assassins stationed in Damascus, including the search party Malik had sent there. As he read the sloppy letter, a decision as resistant as stone formulated in his head, for in his choppy hand, Zafar gave the assassin an excuse to abandon his simple stroll and head straight to the city to investigate. Why was this so important?

The girl could have gone to Damascus.

While he was concerned for his Brother, Altair saw the news as an opportunity to search the city for the girl while he was there. It was the most sensible thing to go after all, considering he was the closest assassin to Damascus at the moment. There was no way Malik could argue against it. Waiting for his Brother to recover would give him plenty of time to search the streets before having to return to Masyaf with the injured assassin.

Altair nodded decisively, "Take this letter to Masyaf and tell them that you saw me. Tell them that I went straight to Damascus."

"Yes, I understand." She took the letter back and stuffed it into her pouch, "One more thing, assassin."

"What is it?"

"Your umm…brother. He saved my sister's life. Would you thank him for me when he wakes up?"

"I will."

Altair and the plump woman parted ways and headed in opposite directions, each with a message to pass along. As far as the missing girl was concerned, Altair had no idea what he had just stumbled upon.