Lesson in Being Immortal

Boston 1787

The moon hung just above the horizon, casting the surrounding area in the eerie glow of its light. I signaled the four assassins with me to halt their advance through the thinning woods as I saw something move in the shadow. Looking in the direction I saw the movement, I lost sight of it. Switching to the sense I was still not quite familiar with, I did not pick up anything at all. I must have imagined it. Jumping at the shadows the moon's light was highlighting.

I began the advance once more. I did not want to be here long. I just had a feeling about tonight that something would happen here, but this had to be done. The last remnants of my father's men lay in the city, and I knew where. It was to be simple, but nothing ever goes the way it is supposed to.

I saw the shadow once more. It was a bit clearer now. Smaller, a woman I believe. The shadows clung to her like a second skin. Could it be the woman I found in the woods so long ago? Hanging from a tree and when I cut her down to give her a proper rest, she vanished into thin air. Did her spirit haunt me now?

I shook my head and she was once again gone. A ghostly spectator watching me, and trying to warn me of some danger? I was not sure, but I did not listen and continued my advance.

Then the ambush. We had been sold out by our own brothers. I fought well, but not well enough because one by one, my comrades fell onto the frozen earth. Their broken bodies bleeding out into the white snow that blanketed the ground, turning it an awful shade of burgundy.

"Goodnight Assassin." And they fired on me.

I felt the iron balls rip through my flesh, and I knew Death was not far behind. My knees connected with the ground, but as the light died in my eyes, I saw the flash of a blade and they began to fall. A woman walked from the shadows, gray cloak billowing out behind her. She glanced at me, and I saw no more.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

I awoke to the feeling of nothing. No pain, no burning, just slightly warm. I felt my chest and felt whole flesh under my calloused finger tips.

"Be calm, Ratonhnhak;ton. You are safe."

I turned my head to see her sitting on the hearth, adding a new log to the small fire. She turned and gave me a small smile. "No harm will befall you here, my brother. Nothing shall happen that is not of your doing."

Her eyes were the color of the snow clouds outside. Gray, but they held not malice, but sadness. Her clothing was different than my own, but held much of the same features. I sat up slowly, looking down at my bare chest. Neither a scar nor a scratch was to be seen from my run in with the Templars.

"Are you a witch?" I asked as I turned my eyes back to her.

She stood and walked towards me. I could not help but move further back from her. Her smile stayed, but the sadness that I saw in her eyes was there as well. "I will not harm you, and I am no witch. I am an assassin like you, and I have had my eye on you for quite some time. I worked with you father, before he turned to them."

I knew what she meant. The Templars. But how was she so young? I was coming up on my thirtieth year. If she had worked with my father, then she would have been older than she seemed. "You look no older than myself."

Taking up a chair, she looked at me. "Twenty and seven years to the normal folk, but you should know who I really am if you are to know what you are to become."

"What am I to become? What riddle is this?" I narrowed my eyes at her. She spoke nonsense at me.

Pushing the dark mass of waves over her shoulder, she merely just watched me. "You died, Conner Kenway. You died three nights ago. Your men died as well, but they did not come back. You have been chosen, just as I have."

I did not understand. "Chosen?"

She sighed and placed her hands gently in her lap like I had seen English women do, but from the color of her skin, I could tell she was not English, nor was she native as I was. "You have become what I have hidden from for nearly six hundred years. The orb chose you for immortality. You will never grow old. Never die, nor will you see Death himself. You will be forever lasting for all times."

I could not believe what she was telling me. I would never die. But I had died. "Three nights past, I was shot. I know I died or was that some trick from you?"

She stood once more and walked to the fire. "You did die, Conner. You can die in a sense, but always will you come back."

Then it hit me. She was the young woman I found hanging in the forest. "I found you that day. You were the woman that had been hung. You vanished as I was digging you a proper burial."

She nodded her dark head. "That was me. I thought that if I went deep enough into those woods I could hang there for a long time before someone found me. I was hoping for years. You found me in hours."

"You woke up?" I could not believe it.

She nodded once more, and turned her eyes upon me again. "I had hoped that it would not have come to this, but I see now I should stop hoping, for it never works out for me."

"Are there others like us?" I slid off the bed and let my bare feet touch the chilled wooden floor.

"Two others I'm afraid. I have not spoken to them in many, many years though. I believe they are still across the sea." I heard something in her voice. Longing? Had she left someone she loved over there?

"Why did you leave?"

She chuckled a bit. "A difference you could say. I have missed my comrades for a long time now, but I cannot dwell on them at this moment. We must focus on you."

"I do not even know your name?" I knelt by the fire and warmed my hands.

She resumed her place on the edge of the hearth. "Names are fleeting things, Conner. I have had so many in my lifetime, but my birth name is Alanna Dowd. I am from across the sea. A sand covered area where the weather in almost always warm."

Her smile told me she had loved her home, but the sadness was still in her eyes. "You miss your home, Alanna?"

"It was a place I once called home. I do not have a home now. I wander ever few years, not staying somewhere for any length of time. It is better that way." She poked the fire and it flared up. "I am going west soon. Would you like to accompany me?"

I stood and shook my head. "I have too much to do here. I have things that must be completed." I began to walk away from her when she reached for my arm and grabbed it with her smaller hands.

"They think you are dead. It must stay that way. Your life here is over, I am sorry to say." She looked me in the eye. "You must start anew somewhere far from here. A new name with a new life."

I pulled my arm from her grip. "Lies. All you have said to me has been lies." I glared at her. I could not believe it. NO, I would not believe it!

She pulled back and lowered her head. "You sound so much like him it is sad to me." I could see a tear fall from her eye. It rolled down her cheek and splashed into the wooden planks. "Go if you must. See with your own eyes what I have said. I shall be here for two nights. After that, I'm afraid you will truly be on your own."

I grabbed my clothing and quickly dressed. I would not stay a moment longer and listen to this witch's poisoning words. "You will never see me again."

"We will soon see."

*/*/*/*/*/*/*

I raced as fast as my legs would carry me to the scene of the ambush. It had all been cleaned up by the time I arrived. Fresh snow covered the ground, hiding the blood from everyone's eyes. I walked around and listened to the words people spoke. The men that we had come to kill had indeed been murdered. My men had been taken back and buried.

I took off for Davenport's house. I knew the answers I needed lay there. Looking through the volumes of books, I came across one that looked promising. Opening the thick volume, found what I was looking for. Her name in the list of fallen in a battle my father had betrayed everyone on. Alanna Dowd, 1732. I fell back into the chair. It did not mean she was telling the truth. She could have known of the woman that died and took her name to trick me.

There was one man that might know the truth. A man that was there at that battle. I had met him once in my travels. Finding him was simple. He sat by the fire, carving something from a small piece of timber. He smiled as I walked in.

"Conner, I thought dead. How are you still here?" He placed the wood down.

"It is a long tale that I do not have time for at this time. I have a question for you, if I may?" I took the seat next to him. The fire warmed my cold hands and legs.

He nodded. "If I know that answer, I will surly tell you."

"I need to know about a woman that died in the battle that my father betrayed everyone at. Alanna Dowd."

I watched his eyes soften. "A beautiful woman, she was. Quiet but always smiled. She was a skilled fighter, one of the best. The one thing I remember about her was the color of her eyes. Unusual. Gray, like the storm clouds of winter. There was sadness to them. She would never say where she came from except she was from far away, across the sea."

I felt the chill seep into my bones. Could she be the one and the same? "Thank you." I stood swiftly. I had to find her once more.

"You saw her, haven't you?"

I looked down at him. "What do you mean?"

He smiled. "I have seen her spirit from time to time. Always looks so real. One moment she is there and the next gone. Is that why you were asking about her?"

"Yes, that is why." I headed for the door when he called once more.

"Her grave is in the old cemetery down by the river. I see her there on many occasions."

Swiftly as I could, I ran for the cemetery, and there she stood. A phantom that was real. She never turned around, just watched the water flow lazily by. "I had a feeling you would come here. Had to make sure I was telling the truth?"

"I do not know what to think." It was the truth. I was confused.

"Come west with me, and I will tell you what I know. It is a long and complex tale that spans many years." She finally looked at me, her face a gentle smile.