Chapter Five: For the Sake of Pride
A/N: Also known as "With Due Respect to John Calvin." Suffice to say everyone can be wrong.
It's just that, sometimes, it's not the best idea to tell them that. Poor, stupid little priest with a huge mouth. ;p
For whatever reason, after finding them a rat-infested inn to stay in for the night and paying the innkeeper entirely too much, Oceanus had promptly disappeared with Ash, leaving Altaïr to do nothing but sit and wait.
The assassin's thought process regarding that could be summed up as "to hell with that."
"I hate this city." Oceanus grumbled as they made their way through the crowd. Ash trailed behind him, bladed tail nearly dragging on the ground to avoid slicing someone's throat. Altaïr followed at a distance, tailing the priest from the rooftops. It was just like being back in Damascus, only everything and everyone could turn out to be hostile. Just for safety's sake, he repeatedly stopped whenever the priest lost himself in a crowd to check the city with his Eagle Vision.
There were enough hostile auras—not even guards, just irritants—to give the assassin pause. The priest seemed to know where he was going, though. Altaïr resolved himself to following along, at least until he had a better idea what was going on.
As he watched, he could see a scuffle in the crowd up ahead. The tide of humanity seemed to flow around the growing cloud of dust, leaving the assassin to watch as a red aura and a pair of smaller white ones thrashed each other. Then Oceanus's blue aura appeared, just as the red one—a thief, probably—tore himself free of the fight and ran.
Sighing to himself, Altaïr blinked his vision back to normal and hurried across the rooftops with his eye on the little priest-in-disguise. When Altaïr caught sight of him again, he was talking to a pair of street urchins and nodding behind the thick desert scarf wrapped around his head and neck. Ash stood nearby, panting and wagging his long tail around so much that nearby citizens had to get out of the way or be slapped by the flat of the blade on the end.
Then Oceanus signaled to the pair of skinny boys, and the two broke into a run with Oceanus following, heading in the exact opposite direction the thief had and quickly climbing to the rooftops. Altaïr dropped back, keeping track of them but staying out of sight. Ash eventually joined the roving gang of delinquents, stopping only to give the assassin a one-eyed stare before following.
Altaïr watched as Oceanus and the gang he'd acquired began to slow. The taller boy was pointing out something on the streets to the younger children, with Ash bobbing his huge head, and then all of them disappeared over the edge of the rooftops and into the streets below.
Altaïr arrived just in time to see the priest and his followers slam directly into the thief from before. Oceanus seemed to feign misunderstanding and poor animal control as Ash held the man down and ran this huge pink tongue over his enemy's face. The two dark-skinned urchins, grinning widely and having the time of their lives, took to their heels and left the priest and the huge canine to run away from the livid thief, who hadn't seemed to notice he was robbed yet.
Not much later, in another district, Altaïr watched the priest and the urchins meet up again. If he wasn't mistaken, the priest slipped them several extra coins before bidding them goodbye.
By sheer coincidence, Oceanus turned so that Altaïr could read his lips. The priest had pulled down his scarf to brush grime from Ash's muzzle and the assassin saw him say, "It feels good to do good, right Ash? We should head back to the inn now, though. Our assassin is waiting."
They walked off, and Altaïr suddenly remembered that he had somewhere to be.
The previous night had been hellish. It was hot, yes, but Altaïr was used to that—the problem was that it seemed like someone was trying to rob them every twenty minutes, or else street children were begging Oceanus for thieving tips, or at least permission to borrow Ash for the night. It had ended after the priest had cast a variety of spells to seal the windows and doors, but then Oceanus couldn't sleep because the temperature in the room had been upgraded from "uncomfortably warm" to "stifling." And that had kept Altair awake, particularly after the priest had ordered Ash to "bother someone else."
The day had gotten off to a bad start, and by morning Altaïr knew it was just going to get worse once they set out for the temple of Selûne. Fending off pickpockets had never been so arduous, Altaïr was suffering from sensory overload (Eagle Vision was not helping), and Oceanus's temper had just about reached its boiling point after the third time he'd been shoved.
Why exactly they were heading for the temple was anyone's guess—when Altaïr had asked, Oceanus had cut him off with a terse, "They can help us cut several weeks off our journey." Altaïr didn't bother asking how.
Altaïr knew an explosion of violence was imminent as soon as he saw the way the door priest looked at them. The priest was assessing them, but not for battle prowess and not really seeing them, either. The priest saw their equipment, and their faces, but nothing else. Altaïr was certain the man was a greedy, sniveling coward, but all Gositek saw in Altaïr was a close-mouthed bodyguard. All Gositek saw in Oceanus was…
Oh. This would be interesting. From the looks Devout Gositek was giving Oceanus when he thought the green-eyed priest-in-disguise wasn't looking, the man thought Oceanus was a woman. A needy, prideful, stubborn woman, but a woman nonetheless. A woman asking for favors of a corrupt clergy…
Altaïr wondered if he would need to step back a little to avoid being caught in the crossfire once the little priest realized what Gositek intended. He crossed his arms, conveniently leaving his hands within reach of his short and long swords.
"Are you quite finished with your blathering?" Oceanus growled as Gositek looked ready to launch into another longwinded explanation of why they couldn't see the head priest, Yinochek before the sun went down. "I have only so much patience, Gositek, and it is wearing very thin."
"Blathering? I do not believe you quite understand your situation, young lady." Gositek replied sharply, and Altaïr watched Oceanus freeze in place, staring at the other priest. Already he was starting to flush a deep red. It wouldn't be long now… "Divine Voice Yinochek is nearly sixty years old and has spent forty of these in devoted service to the goddess Selûne, spreading Her word. If you cannot pay even a small fee for your own soul's worth—only ten copper pieces or one silver coin—what makes you think you can be trusted not to sully his Holiness?" Here Gositek's voice dropped low enough that only Altaïr and Oceanus heard him, "There are only so many other options a young woman such as yourself can have, you understand."
"And what," the green-eyed priest said tightly, "might these options be, Devout Gositek?"
Altaïr started counting in his head. Impending explosion in three, two…
Gositek actually leered at Oceanus and Altaïr struggled to keep himself from either laughing or strangling the other priest as a mercy killing no one would argue with. "There is always the procedure of devoting one's mind, body, and soul to Selûne…one of the ways that can be done is to comfort one of our priests…"
When Oceanus spoke, his deceptively high voice was strangely calm, "I understand perfectly." Pausing to take a breath, he tossed a glare over his shoulder at Altaïr, who gave him a carefully blank look in return.
Devout Gositek took Oceanus's hands in his own and Altaïr noted that the green-eyed priest's fingers were twitching. "Then you know that this is not a conversation for prying eyes. Come." Ash growled.
Oceanus snatched his hands back as though they were on fire, stunning the priest. "I believe all opportunities for polite conversation have been at an end for some time. You just failed to notice. So let me say this—I have spent the last few minutes desperately keeping myself from…from…"
"Yes?" Gositek said eagerly.
Oceanus made a strange expression that could only have been counted as a smile by a dying leper. "…From smiting you to ashes where you stand." In the ensuing silence, he whispered, "Devout Gositek, are you a true follower of the goddess Selûne?"
"Of course." But Gositek sounded confused. This was not going according to plan.
Altaïr hid a grin by bowing his head.
"Good. Then I am sure you would not want this temple reported to the Selûne followers known locally as "Lunatics" for their fanatically violent zeal, excommunicated, and burned to the ground, would you?" Oceanus's voice went cold. "Or we could always solve this issue civilly."
Gositek's eyes narrowed after a brief flash of shock. "Now wait just one moment, you dirty foreign-born little b—!"
That was the moment when Oceanus apparently finally decided that civil conversation could go die in a spiked pit, and he promptly showed Gositek his decision by giving the other priest a swift uppercut to the stomach.
As the other priest was cringing on the ground, Oceanus snapped, "Foreign-born, fully-realized priest of Bahamut the Platinum Dragon, thank you." Still keeping his eyes on Gositek, who was staring up at him in horror, the green-eyed priest pulled an amulet on a heavy chain from under his outer shirt. Though Altaïr couldn't see the emblem, he did see Gositek recoil. "We will see Yinochek now."
As Gositek turned white and scrambled back into the temple, Altaïr stifled a laugh and Oceanus pinched the bridge of his nose. Ash whined.
"You could have stepped in at any time, you know." Oceanus complained as the crowd tried to avoid them, spreading into an ever-widening circle.
Altaïr shrugged. "You could have stopped him any time you wished, as well."
"But…"
"A man fights his own battles." Altaïr told him. Ash barked his agreement.
Oceanus muttered something that sounded like another complaint, but Altaïr ignored him. Gositek was coming back, flanked by spearmen.
"If this plan of yours fails, what will you do?" Altaïr asked as the guards closed in and he felt the same sense of walking on a knife's edge as he had while playing scholar in Jerusalem.
"Ask me again once we get inside." Oceanus replied.
Out in the ocean beyond Memnon, rapidly heading toward Amn waters and out of range of most land-based attackers, the Maiden was cutting through the waves in search of a rich new port to exploit.
This really just meant that her captain was bored, and her crew was starting to feel like they were in need of coin.
Zahara played with a copper piece, forcing it to dance between her fingers, and was still doing it when her first mate, Orakh, approached holding a mirror.
"It's for you, Captain." Orakh grumbled—he hadn't forgotten the vicious beating she'd handed him for stealing from the passengers' things, and he doubted the marks from her nails would ever fade completely—but he handed over the scrying mirror whole and unmarred, which was more than she could say of some of the men on the ship.
She dismissed him with a wave and rapped the silver-backed glass against the railing so the image cleared up. Then, she hissed in a language foreign to her entire crew, "Keras? Is everything all right? You shouldn't be calling me while I'm at work!"
Her son's face was anxious, those teal eyes wide and worried. "I know, Mom, but it's serious. Where's Snowball?"
"Oceanus? We dropped him off in Memnon yesterday. He seemed normal enough, though that boy always seems to be a little touched in the head. "
"Damn! Mom, something weird's going on up here." Keras's image flickered and Zahara smacked the mirror against the railing again, in a way that would have caused its creator to have a fit. "I don't know what's wrong, but it's almost like someone's trying to keep me from finding him!"
"Could it be the item the assassin is carrying?" she suggested, wondering if Immersa had been right. The other woman always seemed so self-righteous that it was hard to take her entirely seriously.
"What assassin?" Keras demanded. "Mom, you didn't seriously give him a second mission to escort Artemis Entreri, did you? They'll kill each other before they get out of Calimshan!"
"No, this was someone else." Zahara assured him. "He was very polite, and besides, he was too young to be Entreri."
"I hope you're right, Mom." Keras mumbled. "Are you sure he'll be alive long enough to get here?"
"Most likely." Zahara replied. "Besides, I'm sure that…" She trailed off, sniffing the air.
"Mom?"
"We're going to have to cut this short, sweetie," she murmured, glancing at the sky. Just a little…well, that was an interesting speck of orange light. She, of all people, knew a delayed fireball when she saw one. "Someone doesn't want me to help anyone anymore." She broke the mirror's face on the railing and threw the shards overboard, just as the little fire-seed began to expand.
The fireball exploded onto the deck, setting the ship alight.
Zahara smiled, wreathed in flames, and walked over the railing even as the crew started screaming.
The inner sanctum of the temple was the sort of blatant, obnoxious luxury that Altaïr hadn't seen since his mission to assassinate Abu'l Nuquod. Silk tapestries hung from the walls, chandeliers brightened the entire room, polished mahogany tables laden with fine foods stood at both sides of the room, and servants scuttled to and fro among the guards, priests, and dozens of doors.
Altaïr, who had grown up in the mountain fortress of Masyaf while training to be a killer and could figure out how to sleep in a cliff face if necessary, found this display disgusting. This wasn't a temple, it was a manor. And this was in the poor district? At least the Merchant King of Damascus had lived in a district where everyone was nearly as wealthy as he was. The temple of Selûne was a hideous parasite in comparison.
The only good thing about the entire situation was that, since Oceanus was a priest and he'd claimed that Altaïr was his bodyguard and Ash was his familiar, they hadn't needed to disarm (or in Ash's case, stay outside). The assassin could only imagine how long it would take both of them to get rid of all their hidden weapons—Altaïr carried twenty-five throwing knives any time he was able to and he remembered that Oceanus carried at least six. And who could possibly disarm Ash, who had a blade for a tail-tip?
"Memnon is a cesspit," Oceanus said quietly as they were led forward, "but the poor district is special."
"I see that." Altaïr said, "Though I am surprised by the extent." Already he was searching for escape routes because he could see that the situation could only get worse. The windows up near the ceiling looked breakable, and just from glancing at the walls he could see a dozen handholds. All of the guards had heavy polearms.
My escape route is planned out. He glanced at Oceanus, who had his gaze locked forward. But not his. How are you going to get out?
After a long silence, Oceanus said in an undertone, "Most people come away from this place in a state of shock. If the crowds saw this, there would be a riot."
The man who held the title of Blessed Voice Proper, Yinochek, was old. Normally this wouldn't have even really registered with Altaïr beyond just being a fact he noticed—the Damascus rafik was old enough for his beard to turn white but was still capable of defending himself, and of all people he knew that al Mualim had been dangerous to the last—but Yinochek didn't seem to have earned his years through hard work, skill, and wisdom. Yinochek was old because he had never had to face danger and get away unscathed, instead living in the lap of luxury at the expense of his fellow man. He was soft.
Altaïr glanced at Oceanus as the little priest took in their surroundings again and began to scowl.
"You are the priest of Bahamut?" Yinochek wheezed from his…for lack of a better word, Altaïr had to call it a throne. For a man called the Blessed Voice Proper, Yinochek sounded every bit the old man he was, if not older and frailer still.
"Yes, I am." Oceanus said. "This is Altaïr ibn La-Ahad, my bodyguard." They had worked this all out beforehand, and Altaïr had to admit that the lie didn't lose any credit the more it was used. Oceanus was small and delicate-looking—of course he would have a bodyguard who was taller than half the people in the city. It didn't hurt that the assassin still carried all four types of weapons he was proficient with, all in plain sight.
"I see. What did you wish to discuss with me?" Yinochek demanded.
Oceanus looked up at the old priest and said, in a voice like ice, "Explain to me the connection between indulgences and time spent on the Fugue Plane after death. I am afraid I do not understand."
Yinochek glared but answered anyway, "To be sure a dead soul avoids temptation by demons and devils on the Fugue Plane, we beseech the great Selûne to rescue them and take them into her arms. Is it wrong to ask that our priests be compensated for the divine drain on our bodies?"
All of this was as familiar to Altaïr as the concept of a potato (whatever that was), but Oceanus clearly understood. His scowl deepened.
"And what happens to the souls afterwards?" Oceanus asked coldly, not giving the old priest a chance to answer. "The Fugue Plane is where all human souls are judged, and every single one of them has to wait before being sent to their final resting place. If Selûne takes the souls of everyone who has ever paid indulgences, then she could surely reject many out of hand because she is both a great goddess and a goodly one and is free to do so. Then the souls simply go back to the Fugue Plane. But if every soul is judged there, then what is stopping worshippers of goodly gods everywhere from simply joining their god regardless of indulgences paid?" The question was clearly rhetorical, because the green-eyed priest went on, "And what stops evil men who have paid, in a twisted attempt at penance, from simply being flung to the mercy of the Lower Planes?" Oceanus took a deep breath. "Does money absolve a man of sins and grant passage into the domain of a great goddess after death, or is that just a lie you've fed your congregation?"
Altaïr thought about dropping a throwing dagger just to see if everyone in the room would jump.
Yinochek's expression became thunderous and Altaïr saw Oceanus twitch. "You dare—?"
"Yes, I dare!" Oceanus said in a voice that shook the rafters. "I dare to confront an ancient, corrupt high priest who makes whores of the women of this city and beggars of all others!"
The other priests stepped back. Gositek gaped.
"I dare to have you all excommunicated by your own goddess for putting your own comfort above caring for you people!" Altaïr heard gasps but was too busy staring at the little priest, who was speaking as though he had been possessed by a servant of Allah and spoke with His voice. And checking to see if his planned escape routes were still viable as avenues of attack.
"I DARE BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL!" The silver medallion on his chest flashed once, twice, the little white star glowing like a real one. Then Oceanus shook his head as if to clear it.
"A bold statement from the servant of a lesser god," Yinochek growled. "You threaten the very foundation of this city."
"Some things need to be torn down to start over cleanly," Oceanus replied, his voice cold. "And at least I am not a lesser person, Yinochek. A foul person makes a weak priest, and you are both."
Altaïr groaned mentally and checked his weapons. One, two, three…
"Guards, kill them!" Yinochek screamed.
Oceanus almost smiled. It was really more of a feral expression, but it was one Altaïr found he could match. "Ash, go wild."
The huge white canine in question, who had been lounging harmlessly at the assassin's side through the entire shouting match, leapt to his feet and charged forward with a bestial snarl. The fact that Ash still carried Oceanus's armor, mace, and other belongings in his bags did not help the priests any as he bowled them over.
At the same time, Altaïr drew his sword and fended off a spear-wielding guard's weapon before driving his foot into the hollow of the man's stomach. Anyone stupid enough to try and use a pike on a foot soldier was an idiot and did not deserve to live. Altaïr punctuated the terminal lesson in tactics by snapping the hidden blade out and driving it through the man's chain mail and into the space between his third and fourth ribs.
Even while Oceanus fought off the guards, he continued yelling vicious taunts at the old man. Altaïr didn't exactly agree with the tactic, but it was the priest's choice if he wanted to make a bigger scene.
"How many of the dirty street rats are your spawn, Yinochek?" Oceanus shouted as he dodged a guard's spear and grabbed it, proceeding to break it over his knee. "How many, Yinochek? How many years has it been since you've moved one oh-so-holy foot from your cesspit of a temple? Answer me! I am sure the people would love to hear stories of what you have been up to for the last forty years!"
"I will see you burning the maw of a balor for this, filthy foreign guttersnipe!" Yinochek snarled. "To think that you could challenge a high priest of Selûne and speak blasphemy—for this, you deserve nothing short of an eternity in the Nine Hells!"
"Only if you go first!" barked the little priest. "The world will be a better place without you in it!"
Altaïr ducked a man's clumsy sword-strike and jammed his hidden blade into the man's eye. Then the hidden blade went away and the assassin spun on his heel, grabbing a man's fist and twisting his arm. A vicious kick to the guard's knee toppled him easily (if with a lot of screaming), and then Altaïr was on the move again, this time with his own longsword.
Mouthy little…the fact was, Oceanus was making the entire situation impossibly worse. Guards were swarming like flies to a kill, and more than anything Altaïr hated being surrounded. He could cut his way out, but he never escaped totally unscathed. And in a closed fight like this one, that meant that numbers would drag him down if he so much as stepped wrong.
So, Altaïr did what he always did whenever he was cornered—he ran.
Straight at the nearest wall.
Up and on top of the bookshelf, jump over toward the support beams—secure!—then clambering up on the beam and running across—leap at the nearest junction—and then he was standing on top of a chandelier, the first of twenty-five throwing knives in hand.
Shunk. "AAAARGH!"
One down, the assassin thought grimly, moving along the beams as fast as he could and throwing still faster. Knife to the eye. Altaïr stood on the chandelier and leapt, catching another wooden beam spanning the room and swinging himself up onto his new attacking position.
One of the guards was trying to jab at him with his spear, but Altaïr was moving too fast for him and a flung knife silenced the man forever. Another tried to leap onto the beam after him—he was agile, Altaïr would give him that—but was met squarely by the assassin's hidden blade and fell soundlessly, his heart punctured. The corpse flattened two men and left Oceanus an opening to escape the crowd, which he didn't take. Of course he wouldn't—that would have been the smart way out.
Still, Altaïr had his own problems. Now they were bringing in white-robed priests with shiny metal staves, and Oceanus, for whatever reason, immediately tackled one and punched him in the face. Ash was also targeting the priests rather than the guards—which almost made sense for him, given that Altaïr had just seen a spear shatter against the beast's fur—and leapt at one's throat.
The assassin just shook his head helplessly, deciding against intervening just yet. So far, no one had come up with a foolproof plan of attack against him that didn't involve losing an eye to the assassin's deadly accurate throws. Mostly because of that, he was being mostly left alone by the guards and free to pick them off at his leisure, though he didn't know how long that situation would last before the archers showed up. He was twenty feet in the air, still flinging knives at the choicest targets, and then it suddenly became clear he couldn't wait if he wanted to get out of the city in one piece.
Possibly only to the surprise of the green-eyed priest in question, Oceanus was surrounded and desperately fending off attacks from all sides. A slash here, a stab there…it would probably be about five minutes or so before the priest dropped of exhaustion or blood loss. Ash flailed wildly, slashing with his tail and tearing with his teeth, but neither was making that much of a dent in the mob for some reason.
Looking around, Altaïr spotted the old priest—Yinochek—waving his hands over another man. Suddenly, there were three of the same man standing there, all wavering and twitching so badly it made the assassin's eyes water. He looked down into the crowd and blinked, abruptly realizing that for every unique face in the crowd, there were three bodies and three sets of waving weapons—it was sorcery, all of it. Oceanus and Ash couldn't hurt the priests and guards because they weren't real.
Altaïr blinked rapidly and stared down at the mob, switching to Eagle Vision, and there he found the trick among the swarm of red and blue auras—he could see the real enemies as bright red and the false images as a paler red, barely visible. Oceanus was blue and Ash glowed white, and…and Yinochek was gold. Altaïr shook his sight back to normal, leaping to another beam, and then took aim. He threw one of his last knives at the old priest.
To his surprise, it flew true and straight and struck Yinochek in the shoulder just as the old priest was waving his hand in a complicated gesture. Altaïr didn't understand what the man was trying to do, but he did see a blast of green light flare around the room, casting the shadows into sharp relief and blinding half of the combatants. Altaïr counted himself lucky for pulling his hood down at the last second, but from the sounds of screams below, others hadn't been half as fortunate or skilled.
Shaking himself, the assassin dismissed the strange light and focused on getting back into melee range now that his ammunition was gone.
Ash howled, turning on a guard and snapping at him with his huge teeth bared, but when Altaïr jumped down from the rafters, he landed on the man next to Ash's target, knocking him senseless. The huge canine made a noise of confusion when his opponent disappeared, but there wasn't time to think about it.
Altaïr moved—this was where he could really fight.
He didn't relish confrontations with Saracen or Templar guards after a sleepless night, but there were times when he could only think of the blood singing in his veins and the sounds of clashing metal in his ears. Sometimes it happened in pursuit of a target; others, in the presence of his fellow Masyaf assassins during practice bouts. Maybe it was that these enemies were different and mysterious, but no matter the reason Altaïr was fighting as well as he ever had. Unaware that his pupils didn't contract and probably uncaring if he had been, the assassin flowed from one downed opponent to a new one in a flurry of blows that left his enemies dead or dying in his wake. He never missed, despite the dancing illusions. There was no grace beyond what was granted by speed and skill—he made cuts so quickly that the guards and priests couldn't respond fast enough to avoid sudden white death—and blood splattered all over the stones.
A blow connected—the strike of a mostly-deflected ax—and Altaïr didn't even acknowledge his attacker longer than it took to slash the man's eyes out with a swing of his short blade. Though his arm was numbed and would probably ache abominably later, Altaïr fought on.
Oceanus was slowing, even as Altaïr leapt into the fray without a second thought, and Ash plumbed the depths of savagery afforded to him by his bestial nature. Fifteen men lay dead at their feet (mostly due to Altaïr's vicious strikes) and many more were injured, but they kept coming. Every second they spent trying to hack at the human tide, the weaker they were becoming. Slowly but surely, they were losing.
"Altaïr." Oceanus gasped, catching the assassin's attention and, unfortunately, distracting him at exactly the wrong moment. Altaïr gained a slash across his shoulders for his trouble, though Ash immediately leapt on the man who'd struck that blow, fangs bared and bloody.
"What is so important that you can only say it now?" Altaïr demanded roughly over the death gurgles and the sound of tearing flesh, taking the priest by the shoulder and forcing him upright.
Oceanus swayed and the assassin noticed that the priest's gaze was unfocused—a complete turnaround to his usual glare. His eyes seemed to drift around as Altaïr spoke—it was a bad, bad sign. Still, the priest muttered, "Someone…using a sleep spell."
Altaïr didn't have to guess at what such a spell did. "And…?"
"And I think…ohhh...someone hit me really hard…" Oceanus grimaced, putting a hand to his head. It came away with red on his fingertips. "Damn. And… still wouldn't be thinking right…" He backed up against the wall for support. "Just…just keep them off me for as long as you can. This is my fault…" Altaïr didn't know if he finished that sentence with "…so I have to be the one to fix this," but it was a nice thought, anyway.
Altaïr listened with half an ear as Oceanus muttered something that didn't exactly sound human under his breath. He was busy hacking at the second wave of guards with Ash at his side, trying to force down the nagging doubt that they were going to get out of this in pieces, at best.
His gaze drifted over to the Blessed Voice Proper after a particularly annoying enemy was finally cut down, and Altaïr momentarily was at a loss. The old priest was certainly doing something, even if Altaïr had no idea what.
Ash saw it too. And apparently the white canine did know what was happening, even if Altaïr didn't, because he immediately plowed through the fresh line of guards and threw himself at the old man, snarling.
The air flashed red and Ash was thrown back—Altaïr saw some sort of bubble around the old man. It looked almost like a shield…
Yinochek didn't even seem to notice Ash's assault, still deep in the trance as he was. It almost…Altaïr didn't exactly understand how spells worked here, but he did understand that in all the old stories, sorcerers needed to talk to weave their magic—they were tricksters one and all. But Altaïr couldn't stop this one from casting anything, which left him to try and fight off its effects once they came.
"Altaïr, Ash!" The assassin looked back and saw Oceanus gesturing frantically to them. "Move! It's a sleeping spell… " The priest trailed off, sagging against the wall as all of them felt the weight of the enchantment. Ash shook himself and wobbled over to his master, but Altaïr could feel the mantle of the spell pressing down on his mind.
That didn't stop him. He'd destroyed an army feeling worse than this. He'd cut down his own master feeling more fatigued. This? This was nothing.
What followed was a frantic blur to Altaïr. Oceanus fell senseless to the ground—Ash bit him to try and keep him awake—more guards swarmed like ants to a spilled honey pot—the old Blessed Voice Proper laughed—then there was a sensation of rushing darkness, and spinning.
Altaïr blinked and looked up at a sky filled with shining silver stars. He fell.
There was a flash of blue light and the last of the walking skeletons collapsed into a useless pile of bones, held together only by the enchanted wire they'd used to string it together in the first place. Together, the pair of necromancers—student and teacher—shook their heads. The older of the pair, a black-haired woman with pupil-less green eyes and a pair of curved horns jutting from the sides of her head, waved her apprentice off when he tried to clean up the remains of their experiment. It was a failure, of course—three zombies had exploded when he'd misjudged the amount of negative energy they could take, and they weren't making any progress with controlling large groups of undead anyway.
Yttress ran her thumb over the point of one of her horns, a nervous tic of hers with a tendency to draw blood, and ground her teeth together before grunting, "Go out and get something to eat before you try this again. I will not tolerate yet another disastrous failure like this one." With a sweep of her arm, the chamber began to fill with fetid swamp water to wash away the failed experiments. Turning away, she hissed, "Just…just get out of here."
Her apprentice bowed and left before the water started to flow over his boots.
It took a bit of luck and guesswork (mostly because the layout of his teacher's lair changed every day), but he managed to find his way to the surface. It didn't exactly smell like the mountain air he'd become used to over the years, but even swamp scents were frankly preferably to those of rotting corpses. Or worse, exploded corpses.
He sighed and sat down on a nearby log, just glad to be out of Yttress's presence. Even for a sorceress and a necromancer, she was unnerving to be around. He'd never asked her why she kept the horns, either.
Though he didn't exactly know why he'd been sent to be an apprentice to a woman who scared him and to learn an art he'd sworn off of as soon as he was freed from his masters years ago, he wasn't about to question orders. That wasn't in his nature and never had been. Still, it was better than being sent to spy on Thayan wizards or Netherese insurgents in the north. Very slightly, but still better. At least he had the option of eating something other than insects.
Speaking of which, even in the shadow cast by moonlight, he could still see something splash into the water some distance away. He could also see the ripples in the water as the local trolls and crocodiles started to move toward the motion.
On one hand, he'd never been one for heroics. That tendency had been beaten out of him over a life full of disappointments, if he'd ever had it to begin with. Most people in the swamp Yttress had carved into the landscape tended to die easily and too quickly for any rescue. Given her tendency toward black moods and petty violence, he hadn't really been surprised to discover that in the first place.
On another, he was pretty sure he recognized the big white shape that started mauling the local apex predators, and if he didn't get over there soon, there wouldn't been any crocodiles left to eat.
He sighed and tapped a nearby tree, mumbling a word of power. Then he walked into the bark and vanished.
Altaïr hit the water, hard. Lucky for him, it was shallow enough that he could stand upright on the muddy bottom and break the surface. He threw his hood back, trying to figure out where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, and suddenly he was face-to-face with Ash. More specifically, he was looking at Ash while the huge dog was trying to kill something that looked like a human made of slime and rock.
Whatever it was, Altaïr knew he wasn't about to start a fight when neck-deep in water that probably wasn't safe to drink. Flailing, he scrambled toward the nearest shore he could see, even as he saw crocodiles start to move in the darkness. Great.
Still, he managed to make it to relatively solid ground with a mouth full of toothy death snapping at his heels. Oceanus was already there—the assassin figured Ash had something to do with it—but was unconscious. That made the entire affair twice as difficult.
More of the twisted man-shapes moved against the darkness and Altaïr slashed one. To his shock, the blade actually ripped the creature's arm off, but it didn't seem to slow the beast at all. Grinning and showing off a mouth full of crooked teeth, it lunged at him and he reflexively slashed again, this time splitting its skull.
It fell, but he felt a stabbing pain in his leg—the arm was attacking on its own! He'd have to rip the claws out of his leg soon—he felt them digging in toward bone, but there was no time! Ash was lashing out blindly in the water, howling when a crocodile bit his rear leg and dragged him down—crocodiles and the strange man-beasts swarmed like the guards from not long before—
And flame appeared in the darkness next to an old swamp tree.
Altaïr blinked, trying to understand what had just happened, but then little spurts of fire were shooting from nowhere. A fireball struck one of the man-beasts and Altaïr stared in horror as the creature burst into flame as though it were made of kindling. All of the other monsters recoiled, some catching flame from the first one's dying spasm, and they began to retreat.
Altaïr's eyes narrowed when he saw a person seem to just appear from the shadow of a swamp tree, a flame still glowing in his hand. Still, he couldn't do anything about it if he was busy trying to rip a clawed hand out of his leg. Which he was.
The stranger approached- Altaïr caught sight of black hair and eyes, over a shadowed face. "Who are—?" The stranger paused, looking down at Oceanus, and muttered, "Of course." The next thing Altaïr knew, he was setting the clawed arm alight with the strange fire in his hand and easing the weary assassin to the ground, as the final remnant of the dead monster burned away.
"What were those things?" Altaïr asked after a moment where his mind went completely blank out of shock. There were a lot of things he wanted to say—most of them rather foul curses—but he decided to stick to practical points for the sake of his sanity.
"Trolls," the stranger replied, kneeling and looking over both his and Oceanus's wounds as Ash finally managed to scramble out of the water, where the crocodiles were strangely passive all of a sudden. The flame flickered out, to be replaced by a tiny ball of white light. "They can be very dangerous in groups, but if you wave a torch they usually run away screaming." He glanced up and Altaïr realized that the stranger was probably a few years younger than he was, with a scar running from below one ear to his cheekbone. "Who are you?"
Altaïr grunted as the man gripped his knee and tried to get a better look at the puncture wounds on his calf. "Altaïr ibn La-Ahad."
Something changed in the young man's gaze, but it was only for an instant. "Well met," the dark-eyed man murmured, waving a hand over a tree stump. The wood burst into life as a squat, mobile tree stump with teeth. A moment later, two more joined it. Altaïr didn't even try to understand that. "You can call me Riyaz."
Riyaz snapped his fingers and the two tree stumps picked up both Altaïr and Oceanus like living chairs and followed jerkily as the man started to walk away. Ash whined as the strange man led them deeper into the swamp.
This was almost too much. It strained belief. "What are you?" Altaïr asked, desperate to understand the situation even a little bit, before he went insane.
Riyaz looked back at them, seeming slightly surprised. Altaïr thought he saw a shape in the gloom that didn't look anything like Ash, but was still obviously an animal. It disappeared when he blinked, though, and he dismissed it as a trick of the fog. Riyaz didn't seem to notice the momentary lapse in attention and said evenly, "I am a druid, an agent of balance among nature. You?"
"An assassin." Altaïr responded without thinking.
"Ah, so we have something in common, then." Riyaz remarked vaguely. "So, how did you get in this mess? Specifically, why are you here?"
Altaïr blinked. Then, after a moment to gather his thoughts, he explained the series of events that led them to end up stranded in a swamp.
Riyaz listened patiently until the assassin finished speaking, at which point he asked dryly, "So, when Oceanus wakes up…do you want to hit him first, or should I?"
A/N: And thus ends part five, where Oceanus proves that he should never be left in charge of diplomacy and occasionally needs a good whack upside the head.
And thank you to everyone who's still reading this!
Also, it says quite a bit about Zahara that her own son Keras expected a lot worse of her, huh? She's Chaotic Neutral clean through.