AN: My goal with the flashback chapters is that they read almost as stand-alone pieces; ideally, when this fic is finished, you'd be able to just read the flashbacks and have a cohesive story. That way I can work in two time periods without narrating the entire game verbatim. If it sounds familiar it isn't mine. Also: all the love for Haaz Sleiman's voice acting.

Jerusalem

Before

Long before he arrives, Malik knows Altair is coming.

He is the Dai of Jerusalem, after all, and has been so for nearly two years. His web of informants is an intricate one, his understanding of how the city functions absolute. Every time a guard takes a bribe or a caravan smuggles in untaxed goods, Malik has already guessed whether the guard will be discovered or the caravan master betrayed. His men at the bureau are loyal to the point of death.

And so he has much warning of Altair's mission, even before one of Al Mualim's pigeons comes flapping in. It is slipped to him in wary tones, by a nervous journeyman new to Jerusalem and well versed in the myth of fearsome Dai Malik. His anger is legendary in the city, kept at a permanent simmer, easily boiled over. Malik takes the news well, though, giving the messenger the briefest of raised eyebrows and then turning back to his work. It's as if he's forgotten who Altair is, and what Altair did.

Later, when the journeymen under his bureau roof have stopped muttering and sending him perplexed looks when they think he can't see, Malik steps out from behind his desk and climbs to the roof. There are three entrances out of the bureau: the assassins slip through the hidden roof grate and oblivious customers walk through the front door. The third is known only by the Dai, a narrow staircase of cool stone and dust.

On the roof, Malik stands with his feet at the very edge and looks out over the city. His city. He knows it in brown and green and spurts of red. She robbed him so mercilessly, did Jerusalem, the whore, fought over by everyone for every stupid reason since the first light of the world. How he hates the thought of her.

How comfortable he feels within her walls. Malik has only been back to Masyaf once since his promotion and it could have been any village but it wasn't home. In Masyaf he'd been a stranger. In Masyaf they still stared. Malik makes the novices in Masyaf uncomfortable.

Not until he left did he feel himself relax. Passing by a public fountain, green with mold, crowded with women washing laundry and children, he caught a glimpse of himself in the water: eyes shadowed and sunken, beard allowed to darken, the sword strapped to his waist not as clean as it might be. The missing arm.

Only in brutal Jerusalem can he recognize himself.

Jerusalem is a city carved from the desert rock to be a holy place, and so it has become for him—a twisted, bitter place that has plenty of room for his own bitterness. Kadar died here, and here Malik stands watching the city that killed him. Yes, it is his holy place! It holds the bones of the martyr.

He stares out at the sand-colored buildings that wrap around in every direction. Jerusalem in this season is surprisingly cool at night and lush, green with wildflowers that grow in the cracks of old roads. The various religions have cornered themselves off but in a place like this there can't help but be some bleed-through, and so Malik sees Christian monks walking past Muslim madrassah students, who pour out of squat rooms tacked on behind mosques. Farther in the distance, not far from the Temple ruins, is the city's largest synagogue, stars carved into wooden slats painted a peeling green. The roof is high and steeply pointed, perhaps to compete with the many minarets and church bell towers.

Balconies sprinkle shade in scorching daylight, wash-lines stretch between buildings put together out of scrap metal, refugees squat by open sewers and linger by the benches in the many little, public gardens.

He knows every alleyway by sight and foot's memory. It's expected of a Dai to know his city and of a mapmaker to know his world, but more than any of that Malik refuses to be caught unaware again.

Still, it can be very overwhelming. With heaviness in his chest he can only now, alone, reflect on, Malik closes his eyes to Jerusalem's cacophony.

Altair Ibn La'Ahad is coming here.

Malik has heard of his ridiculous redemption quest, how he goes from city to city killing those deemed unworthy by their Master. All are supposedly Templars, although rumor has it Altair has been questioning his targets in detail before dispatching them. Typical. Even now he would prove everyone but himself incorrect. Altair has been to Damascus and Acre and now he will come here. To Malik's refuge.

It's his instinct to refuse him entrance, regardless of Al Mualim's orders. Is there not some other name, in some other place, to give the Son of None? Can't one of Malik's own men kill this target? If Malik walked until his feet bled and sat with the djinn of forgotten places, would that be far enough away? Will Altair never die, never leave?

But interfering might be a mistake. It might suggest to the idiot that Malik has spent the past two years seething over—and in seething, remembering—the Son of None. And he hasn't, truly. It's another one of Jerusalem's backwards boons, that he has been too busy trying to keep the city stable to think much of Altair. Of what Altair might be doing at any given moment. Whether he has spent all this time alone.

Malik has not been alone, not by far, and if Altair is coming here than that is what he should see. "I have been doing my duties," he says out loud. And it's true.

So, fine. Let Altair enter the Jerusalem bureau. Let him be treated as any other bumbling novice playing fetch for their Master. Fine. The King of Swords keeps his eyes shut. The wind's weak breath brushes his face.

He opens his eyes and, with cat's grace, jumps.

His black robes open and billow. He drops through thick night air, the clearing rains still some weeks away. His boots hit the cracked street without sound, as he lands lightly, toes a split second before heel, the rest of him in a neat crouch. It was a battle to regain his balance after the amputation but he has won it: he has turned it into a rout for his demons.

As though he'd intended to all along, Malik walks out of the alleyway and through a cluster of shacks to his left, then turns at a bit of broken statuary and moves past a row of benches clustered around a dry fountain. At this hour the benches are empty, but not the streets; cloaked figures hurry around corners and up weather-worn stairs. The occasional quilted jacket and brown turban of the city watch can be seen, the men wearing them hard-eyed and unfailingly bearded, hands always clamped to the hilts of their swords.

Malik isn't worried. He only raises his cowl for protection.

He wonders what message Al Mualim's pigeon will bring when it arrives. Which of Jerusalem's many villains has been marked for death? Malik runs some likely names through his head but doesn't feel much besides disgust for this latest charade. The truth is there's no one, to his knowledge, who needs to die, right now, for stability's sake. Al Mualim may have his own reasons…or it may be another one of his games. Another test.

Malik brings his hand to his shoulder. The old man of the mountain does so love his blood sacrifices.

But it's Altair, not Al Mualim, who has caused so much trouble. Malik fantasizes for a moment about giving him an incorrect map when he comes, in hopes that he'll follow it right off the edge of the Mount of Olives. Or, better yet, he'll give him no map. Let Altair do the hard work on his own, and then when he fails and blunders into a Templar hideout, close the bureau's roof grate and let him save his own ass.

Malik grimaces, lowering his hand. As nice, as necessary, as it is to imagine Altair an untalented fool, it isn't true. He has always been a magnificent fighter.

The Dai's feet take him deep into the sleeping city, trailing the cobblestones past trash heaps and arches. Once he crosses a wide thoroughfare, one of the main roads towards Jerusalem's great, domed souk; in daylight it would be just visible at the road's far end, blocked by merchants' stands and palm trees browning in the sun. At night the road is empty, the stands shuttered, the crowds elsewhere, the souk lost to the dark.

Malik crosses the main road quickly, turns left up a flight of steep steps, and left again past an alcove crammed with sleeping figures. What awake men he passes—and at this hour they are all men—are of similar condition, muttering in dirty cloaks, stumbling along the paths. Drunkards, or lepers. Malik nods at a few he recognizes, because this is not his first nighttime trek and Jerusalem's poorest can be great sources of information for the bureau, but mostly he keeps his distance.

His feet carry him on. They know where he's going even if he goes there without thought.

The road he is on now is a cramped, ugly one. Buildings on either side list tiredly, each forced to hold up its neighbor's weight as well as its own. There are hay carts, ladders propped up to reach roof apartments, and a lot more heaps of trash, but here there are no gardens. No public fountains. Only the stench of too many people with too many sickly children living on top of each other, in a place where even Jerusalem's sun struggles to reach.

He stops for a moment at a fork in the road, judging the noises around him. A bench along one wall has been claimed by a sleeping figure, wrapped in enough rags to be sexless. A structure across the way claims with etchings of cross and crucifix to be a church, but the one window it has is shattered and there are some suspicious stains by the door.

And there are footsteps, behind him and ahead. This deep into the slums it could be anyone: soldiers looking for fun or whores looking for trade, more beggars, petty criminals. Not-so-petty criminals. A district to avoid, especially at night. But Malik goes where others wouldn't. He has left enough groaning pickpockets behind to ensure the criminal elements of the city know not to bother the men in white.

He keeps walking.

Finally he reaches a row of wooden huts, all much smaller than the buildings they're surrounded by, each with a lone window. He passes by without glancing at them, stops at the end of the road to wait. Mud seeps around his boots, an unfortunate thing, because it's been a while since there was rain. He looks back and sees a lantern has gone on in one of the huts, its light gleaming through the window.

Malik lowers his cowl. In contrast, the figure that slips from the hut is wearing his, using the grey fabric to almost vanish into the dark. Only when he draws close to Malik can his features be seen.

"Safety and peace, Dai," says Raed with his usual formality, and bows. Malik returns the greeting and pulls his cowl up again, for safety's sake. "I wasn't sure if it was you or someone else," Raed comments. "But no one else would walk past with such confidence in the middle of the night."

"I hope I didn't wake you. How are things here?"

"We're making progress, I think. You were right, the poor districts were completely ignored under the last Dai. He must have spent all his time wooing the rich king-makers."

"He was a fool. Not worth a thing compared to Faraj." Malik brushes away this blackness. "But we've corrected that mistake."

"Indeed. Some of the big names around here, the thief-lords and such, have pledged their loyalties. If the Templars seek to make inroads with the poor here, they'll find it hard going."

"I doubt they'll try. It's one of that Order's many flaws. They are so concerned with ruling the world they forget there are people living in it. You'll find Templars masquerading as knights but never as beggars or apprentices."

Raed shakes his head. "I've often wondered what exactly they want."

"Power and riches and our heads on pikes, of course. What else could they want?"
"Yes. Dai?"

"What is it?"

"Ah…" Raed hesitates, looking perplexed. "Did you come all the way here at this hour to discuss Order business? I was going to come by the bureau tomorrow with a full report."

Malik shakes his head. "No. I'm not sure why I came. Wanted to see the city, I suppose, make sure it was still standing. And then I ended up here."

Raed nods. "Your reasons are your own, of course."

"Still, I apologize for bothering you."

"You are a better visitor than most we could have had at this hour."

At this, Malik frowns. "Raed—"

"But don't worry about that," insists the other man with a smile, "as I've told you."

"And I've told you, there's no need for you to take this assignment. You have a family. There are safer parts of the city I could put you."

"But this is where the most work needs doing. I told you I would serve you, Lord."

"Serve me as a spy in the rich districts, then. This neighborhood is no place for your children, or your wife."

"She knew when we married that she was marrying an assassin. Besides, she's formed her own little alliances with the women here, at the well and the market. It's amazing how much men will say in front of their forgotten wives!"

Malik says, "Our Order would be incompetent without ladies' gossip. Thank her for me. But they gossip in the better parts of Jerusalem too, you know. They gossip just as loudly in Masyaf."

"But you are here," Raed says firmly. "In this city."

"That doesn't mean you need to be."

Raed frowns, ducks his head. Malik can read the tinge of irritation in how he tugs at his beard. "I told you," he says, "that for what you did I would follow you anywhere. To the edge of the earth."

"Yes…" Malik's eyes dim, remembering. He'd saved Raed's family in the first Templar attack on Masyaf, and then…then, much later, while he lay wrapped in bandages, half-dead with his burden, Raed came again and promised absolute allegiance.

Malik had asked Al Mualim for Altair's head, and when he'd been denied—the Master with his secret plans—he'd asked for two other things, one of which was to be sent out of the village. Sent anywhere else. And as it happened the current Dai of Jerusalem was unhappy with his post…

Malik knew Jerusalem then as Faraj's lost city, as Kadar's. He knew it as a place of ghosts, which was why he accepted the position. And when he'd begun packing for the move (the healers fretting around him and his stitches until he scattered them like pigeons), Raed had come to him a third time, when others hadn't. Something Malik doesn't intend to forget.

"Well," he says now, "Jerusalem isn't quite the edge of the earth, although this bit might as well be." He scratches at the back of his neck, while Raed waits patiently. "I suppose I didn't come here in the middle of the night to argue with you, either."

"Dai," says Raed, slowly, "I heard the news about Altair today."

Malik's hand stills. "What about him?"

"That he's coming here—"

"On some fool's errand. It's of no concern to me." Malik starts walking, once again led by his feet rather than the other way around. This time, though, Raed trails after.

"Altair!" says Malik. "You see how he does it? One mention of him and the whole Order falls to whispering like old biddies at the well."

"Gossip is useful, you just said."

"Gossip can be useful." He glowers, stamping hard on the stone. "There is nothing useful about Ibn La'Ahad. He's no better than a hired killer."

Raed says nothing. It's better that way, else Malik might have to openly admit how silly he sounds.

They walk in silence for some time. Malik has an urge to take to the rooftops, to climb until he can't climb any higher and then lose himself in the flight down. But instead he stops by a stack of crates and presses his palm to one, mindless of the pinprick of splinters. Raed, a step behind, also stops.

"It annoys me that he's coming here," says Malik at last, to the crates. "This is my place. I've shed a lot of blood to make it so."

"Refuse him your help, then. It's within your rights. As Dai you have to let him into the bureau, but you don't have to aid his quest."

"Is that what you think I should do?"

"I think you should do whatever brings you peace, Lord."

"I can't kill him, so there's little hope of that."

"Would it make you happy?" wonders the other man. "If Altair died?"

Malik frowns. "No. The lucky die. The unlucky suffer."

"From the sound of things he has suffered…"

"He doesn't know what it means! You have to be whole to be able to shatter." Malik realizes he is shouting and tempers his voice. "I'd like to take him back to Solomon's Temple. Maybe then he'd learn."

"With respect, Dai, why have you never gone back there? It's on the outskirts of your city but you avoid it as though it was a hundred miles off."

"Is that so strange?"

"No, but we know the Templars used to gather there. And also, the, the body may still be—"

"It isn't. You think Robert de Sablé left it there? You think his group of bastards didn't…? Hah!" Malik snarls his laugh past his throat. "I made that choice once already. Something else Altair has yet to realize."

He's shouting again. Raed looks somber. "I'm sorry," Malik makes himself say. "It's too late for this. I should be at the bureau anyway, waiting for Al Mualim's pigeon."

"Lord, I think…"

"Go home," Malik orders. After a second he thinks to add, "And stop calling me Lord," but Raed doesn't smile.

"I hope you find some comfort out here," is all he says. Then he does turn to go.

"Raed," says Malik. The assassin stops and looks over his shoulder. "I lied before. I don't care who it makes happy. But I want Altair dead. With all my being I want that. I want to see the look on his face when he realizes there are consequences. He acts as if he's never been hurt before, when we were so…"

"I know you two were very close," Raed says without much inflection. Malik wonders just what rumors he's heard. It's been a long time since he's thought of Abbas, but somehow he doubts absence has made Abbas's ugly tongue grow fonder.

"He killed my brother," says Malik, "and he doesn't care. I want him to care! I want to give him wounds that won't close, that keep him awake and groaning in bed—I want him to see how fucking alone he is and then I want him dead."

Raed says, "If he really has been tasked with nine executions, you might get your wish." But he says it with something very close to pity, and pity is something Malik cannot stand.

"Go back, Raed," he shouts, and punches the crate. His fist goes through dry, crumbling wood, and the whole stack gives way with a dusty clatter. A dog starts barking, a few windows nearby show flares of light. And Raed, ever-loyal, leaves the Dai of Jerusalem alone with the wreckage.

-i-

Altair arrives three weeks later. It is a hot day and the bureau is stifling, the smoke from the incense vials Malik keeps lit not enough to mask the smell of human sweat. Someone drops lightly down from the roof grate. The light streaming in from the entry room, bright with the late afternoon, shows a long shadow straightening up. Malik, behind his wooden counter, hears him land and knows it's him, and feels so nauseous the world tilts.

Altair strides in as if he has done this many times. The bureau walls should crumble and the ground should sway, the whole city should rise up in disgust but instead it lets him stand here.

His shoulders are squared, his cowl raised. It's the first time they've seen each other in nearly two years, and somehow he still looks the same. Oh, his robes are scoured of ornamentation and his only weapon is a sword strapped to his back, but Al Mualim let him keep his white robes. He is still tall and lissome and braced for quick movement. Malik has spent the last years thinking him a monster—it comes as something of a shock to remember that Altair is brutally handsome.

"Safety and peace, Malik," he says, so smoothly. As if there aren't years of difference between them. Why does he still hold himself like such a hero?

"Your presence here deprives me of both." Malik tries for frosty disinterest but comes off, he thinks, as dull. To salvage himself he adds, "What do you want?" before Altair can comment. Before there can be any hope in the Son of None's mind that they might talk as if they were past acquaintances.

"Al Mualim has asked that I—"

But even to let the murderer speak is too much. Malik snaps over him, "That you perform some menial tasks in an effort to redeem yourself. So be out with it."

"Tell me what you can about the one they call Talal," Altair says. If he is ruffled he doesn't show it.

Images of the man in question flick through Malik's head. Talal's a local arms-dealer, selling war booty to both sides if rumor can be trusted. The Dai has had men shadowing him for some time, after hearing reports of Talal adding slavery to his list of merchandise, an act Malik refuses to allow in his city. But he hasn't called for the man's death just yet, because the rumors don't say who is getting the slaves. It isn't the Crusaders or the Saracens, he's pretty sure, and so to keep what must be a wide slavery ring from going into hiding he has been treading carefully.

All ruined now, of course. The ring, if it exists, will scatter once Talal is killed, and also…

also…

Altair is standing in Malik's bureau and staring at him. It is intolerable.

"It is your duty to locate and assassinate the man," Malik says tightly, "not mine."

"You'd do well to assist me. His death benefits the entire land."

('You'd do well'. And in the past it was, 'maybe you'll learn something', and, 'I am your superior'. The Master thinks this creature is capable of redemption?)

"Do you deny his death benefits you as well?"

Finally Altair looks riled. Nervous, maybe. He tosses his head: "Such things do not concern me." And that casual arrogance is more than can be born.

"Your actions very much concern me," Malik roars, and jabs his hand at his left shoulder. From throughout the bureau come the sounds of eavesdropping journeymen flinching backwards, into each other and assorted bits of pottery. Altair doesn't flinch, but he does drop his head. Malik can see his hands, wound tight into fists, the knuckles white with pressure.

Not enough. Not enough that Altair should flinch from the amputation. Let him flinch from the rest of his crimes! Malik struggles for a few hours of sleep each night, wanders the bureau for hours more, knowing even if he can't see them that ghosts crowd the halls: let Altair flinch from Kadar, if he wants to play at fear!

"Goddamn you," Malik hisses, straining for calm. He mustn't look as though he cares. Altair sucks in a noisy breath before lifting up his head.

"Then don't help me," he says, but perhaps there is a trace of desperation hidden behind the petulance. "I'll find Talal myself."

It's tempting to let him storm off, tempting to damn him to his own future, for Malik has had enough of their fates being tied. But Malik is also the leader of this bureau; this is his place, and he will not let Altair cause it damage.

"Wait." He sighs, loudly, brimming with impatience. "It won't do, having you stumble about the city like a blind man. Better you know where to begin your search."

"I'm listening."

"I can think of three places," and this is happening, they are having this conversation, Malik is giving Altair information when he should be tearing out his throat. This is the truth, then: Malik knows he is a coward. "To the south of here, in the markets that line the border between the Muslim and Jewish districts. To the north, near the largest mosque of this district. And at the eastern side of St. Ann's Church."

"Is that everything?"

"It's enough to get you started," Malik growls, "and more than you deserve."

Altair lingers a second too long. Something suspicious, something hesitant, crosses his face. To disrupt this the Dai reaches under his counter for a heavy book of maps he keeps handy, pulls it out and slams it down as hard as he can. "Well?" he demands. "I've given you all the help you'll get. Why are you still here?" And before Altair can answer: "I doubt Talal is hiding in my bureau. Attend to your task!"

He flips the book open to a page, pulls a quill from its inkpot and begins to write. He can feel Altair's eyes on him, watching him work. Yes, he thinks, I'm nothing like you remember, am I? It's more than my arm you've changed in me.

When he looks up, Altair is gone, out there in Jerusalem trampling on graves. Malik expects to feel relief, but there is only a dull abhorrence, like an open sore left to throb.

-i-

Altair does not return that day, or that night, or the day after. Malik considers sending some of his most dependable men after him—men who won't spread stories of their leader's obsession. But on the second night Altair drops down into the entryway and moves for the fountains. The crowd of assassins washing there falls silent and scatters. What had been a full room empties in seconds.

If Altair notices that his Brothers treat him as a leper victim, he gives no sign. At the fountain he splashes water over his (bruised, sunburnt) face, then dips his head in for a long drink. Malik is at his counter in the next room, still at work updating a map of the roads to Acre. He doesn't say a thing to Altair's shadow when it crosses his desk.

But when Altair himself looks in, well. That is different.

"Hoping I might do your job for you?" Malik asks icily, without raising his eyes from his map. Without checking to see what new wounds Altair might have gathered. "Have you found Talal? Are you ready for your mission?"

"…No," Altair admits.

Now Malik does look at him. It's expected that journeymen on assignments check in nightly with the local bureau leaders. It isn't expected that Altair ever bothers to do so, because he never has before, and no one's ever chastised him. But as the Dai reminds himself now Altair is not the Master Assassin for whom rules are ignored. He's not even a journeyman. He's a lowly novice.

"There is more for me to learn," says Altair, slowly.

Malik taps his quill to the desk. "In that we agree," he says. "Get out of my bureau."

"I would spend the night here. It's my right as an assassin…"

"As a novice assassin you shouldn't even be outside Masyaf. Go. Sleep on the rooftop. If it rains hold your mouth open and drown."

"Your problems with me don't justify your breaking the Creed—"

Malik drops the quill and puts his hand to a hidden blade's hilt. "Finish your sentence," he says murderously. "Finish your sentence, or else obey orders and get the fuck out of my bureau."

Altair leaves.

-i-

He goes back and forth, does the King of Swords. One day he might be so calm it is a caricature, a frozen anger worse than his heat. He might let Altair sleep with the other assassins in the bureau at night. He might ignore him when the man slips in to tend his injuries, and as the days go by there are many injuries, much blood splattering thinly to the floor. The journeymen help each other bandage wounds and when a hurt is beyond them they go to Malik's well-trained men. But no one ever helps Altar.

On those days Malik can sense Altair watching him, bandages inexpertly wrapped about his arms, ankle swollen from a mistimed jump at the end of a chase. Malik knows if he were to look he'd see Altair rubbing his wrist where his hidden blade should be, watching him. Waiting for…what? An opening? A thawing?

On those days Malik acts as if he is fine.

But then the next day he will be fury personified, snapping at everyone from Raed on down. He is short to the informants, cutting to the journeymen, and once he is so outright rude to an important thief-lord that one of his men gently suggests he leave the information-haggling to others for a while.

Woe to Altair when he appears on those days. He's liable to have things thrown at him. He's liable to be called traitor, bastard, whoremother's dirty half-breed. Once he says, "I overheard some men talking of Talal's warehouse. They say it is heavily guarded by Talal's own men. The man himself is a master archer," and in response Malik slams his fist against the desk.

"You tell me nothing new, nothing I need to know. Al Mualim is toying with us both. And what—that cut on your wrist?"

"A guard's lucky strike. It's minor."

"It is a shame. You filthy my floors with your mess? Get a rag and clean it."

Altair does as he's told, silently fetching a cloth, then getting to his hands and knees and scrubbing the floor. Bemused journeymen gather around the spectacle. He's pale with anger and embarrassment.

Malik comes around the counter to watch. He waits until the blood is mopped up and then, carefully, steps only inches from Altair's fingers, leaving a dark boot print. The Son of None sits back and glares at him. "Well?" Malik says. "It's still dirty. Back to work, Altair."

Altair throws the rag down and gets to his feet. The other assassins sense a change in the air, a crackling of tension, and make quick exits. Malik smiles openly. Here, at last: his chance.

"I have been out for days," says Altair, "doing my duty. Searching out information on Talal, information you already know. I haven't said anything to your little abuses. They don't bother me so much as they seem to entertain you. But this is enough. I'm not a straw dummy for you to practice on. Hinder the Master's orders, if you wish, hinder my work. But do not treat me as a fool."

"Finished?" asks Malik. "Because you aren't finished with the floor."

Altair throws himself at the Dai. Malik sideswipes a couple of punches, hand kept still at his side. Altair curses and lunges for him again…

And from a darkened doorway at the room's other end Raed comes forward, grabs the Son of None by the back of his cowl and yanks him backwards. Then he slams the off-balance assassin against the nearest wall and holds him there, arm pressed against his neck. Malik watches Altair scrabble for freedom and then, glowering, drop his arms. Raed only eases off when Malik nods; the disgraced man keeps himself by the wall, one hand at his throat.

Malik walks up to him, under Raed's sharp gaze, and stands very close. Here are the lips that have pressed against his neck, he marvels. The hands that have clutched his shoulders. Here are the hips that have bucked against his own.

"Watch yourself here, murderer," he says softly. "You are as welcome as a Templar in this place, and you have fewer allies. Don't test my hospitality, Altair."

But maybe he has misjudged. For Altair doesn't scowl or look away. Instead he smiles a little, thin-lipped, mean. "You love to call me a murderer," he says. "Well, the punishment for murder is death. Here I am,Malik. You want me dead so badly? Then kill me. Or can bureau leaders do nothing but talk?"

Malik turns away, dismissing him. "Your blood isn't worthy of my blade," he says. "Show him the exit, Raed."

"I know it," snaps Altair, and stalks from the room. The minute he's gone Malik slumps against the counter.

"Lord," says Raed, "perhaps you should not…"

"It doesn't matter," says Malik. "Go home. Go somewhere else."

The other man pauses. "You wish to be alone?"

"Alone? Here? But it's impossible. This place is filled with ghosts. What, don't you see them?"

"I, I'm not sure I…"

"Go and be with your family. I would rather be here with mine."

Malik swears he hears whispers, long after Raed is gone, long after the few journeymen who choose to spend the night have fallen asleep. "Call me a coward, then," he says out loud. And in the empty room he swears someone does.

-i-

It helps to focus on his work. Map-making is a task that requires much concentration, and with relief Malik unwraps the fresh parchment and dabs his quill into the ink. Solid lines for country borders, thin for city walls; a light hand with the known oceans, lighter still for the places that as yet only demons have found. He closes his eyes and they lay before him, Jerusalem and Damascus and Arsuf. And more than just them. The world with all its pockets of known and unknown, truth and fable.

He remembers Dai Faraj as he draws, and maybe that's what gives his work such quality. His script is always well-formed and legible, his keys always easy to follow, his distances to perfect scale. Assassins come from other cities for his maps, trusting his explanation of Paris or Rome when he has never left the Levant.

Malik presses the point of his compass to the center of his map, or calculates the position of a building he's never seen in a mental flurry of newly invented math, and what he's really doing is filling in the planet's missing spaces. He uses techniques explained to him in part by Faraj and in part by the books he buys off traveling merchants, cripplingly expensive things written out by students of great scholars from as far away as the Rajput kingdoms, from as long ago as Euclid's ilk. Some cartographers still scoff at the new concepts, all triangles and theorems, and that makes Malik's maps the most accurate for miles in any direction. His is a modern place, as much a house of learning as any madrassah.

But he's really just filling in the holes.

The world is large and ugly, and deep with cracks. If he doesn't mark out every inch of every desperate village he will be lost, or else, forgotten. Malik clings to his mapmaking because mapmaking is a kind of fortune-telling: here you will go, and these things you will see. This is how you will prepare for your destiny, when it takes you to where dragons be.

While Altair is in his city Malik draws his maps, or looks at the ones already drawn. Some of them are basic and worn from frequent use. Some of them, buried in the stacks, are older and of rarer places. And some—ones that were swelling with humidity long before Malik was Dai, before Faraj, before Al Mualim's order was a flicker of a thought—some are so old and cryptic they are very dangerous indeed.

Who knows how they came to be in the bureau, the old maps, the maps to places not meant for common travel. Maps to the Alamin, not just the earth but the whole of creation. Maps of the djinn-places, the worlds within worlds. Who knows how any human knew to draw these things. But they are here now, in the heaps, and perhaps one of them is a map of hell and Paradise. Malik would like to find that one, if it exists.

Hell, he thinks wryly, would look a lot like the entryway where Altair sits in a dispersion of pillows, washing his sword. Hell is in his bureau. So he brings out a fresh sheaf of paper, and begins to draw.

-i-

"Malik."

It is three weeks since Altair's arrival, nearly four, and Kadar is still dead and Malik's arm still gone, and his thoughts are still nails being driven between his fingers. So the Dai does not look up.

"Come to waste more of my time?"

"I've found Talal," the Son of None announces. "I'm ready to begin my mission."

"That is for me to decide."

There is a pause while Altair visibly reins in his frustration, a vein pulsing in his neck. "Very well," he grits out. "Here's what I know. He traffics in human lives, kidnapping Jerusalem's citizens and selling them into slavery. His base is a warehouse located north of here. As we speak he prepares a caravan for travel, so I'll strike while he inspects his stock. If I can avoid his men, Talal himself will provide little challenge."

"Little challenge? Listen to you! Such arrogance."

"Are we finished? Are you satisfied?"

In disgust Malik shakes his head. "No. But it will have to do." From under his desk he pulls a white feather from a pile of them, and thrusts it at the other man. "I do not want to hear from you again until that feather is soaked with blood," he tells him. "Either Talal's or your own will suffice."

"Very well. But I still need to finalize my plans before I—"

"Rest, prepare, cry in the corner," he says with a dismissive wave. "Do whatever it is you do before a mission. Only make sure you do it quietly."

It isn't so simple, of course; with Altair it never is. Talal hires his own men and pays them well for loyalty. They guard an entire corner of Jerusalem's richest district, dutifully ignored by the poorly trained and poorly paid city guards. They are all expert archers, and even Altair knows better than to think he can survive such a maelstrom. So he lingers in the bureau for days more, plotting, hit by Malik's taunts for every arrow that might miss.

"What is it, Altair?" the Dai sings on the second day. "Come to admit defeat?"

"I'm resting."

"Does this look like Paradise to you? You should be killing Talal, not cowering in my bureau. Go and finish your mission."

On the third: "You're making wonderful progress. Oh, wait! You're not. But don't worry. I'm sure that if you wait here, Talal will simply die of old age."

With the fourth day comes a frazzling heat, and a novice assassin who still sits in the entryway watching his betters work. Snaps Malik, "They say Talal still lives, which begs the question: what are you doing here?"

And finally, on the fifth day, his patience gashed and bleeding: "Devising some brilliant plan, Altair? Just like Solomon's Temple?"

Altair ducks from the mention of that place, turning his gaze from the King of Swords, moving at last for the roof grate. Malik smirks, watching him. Smirks to see him falter under memory's weight.

-i-

But the story ends as they always end, in shouting and church bells and guards swarming on the streets. The King of Swords watches from one of the bureau's little windows, frowning past the bars. Raed steps into the darkened room (Malik is keeping the candles low) and, hovering in the doorway, says, "Dai?"

"So he lives?" asks Malik. "So he survived?"

Raed is silent. Slowly, Malik nods.

-i-

After some hours the bedlam dies down and the Son of None steps into the bureau's main room. Malik greets him with a cheerful, "Altair! Wonderful to see you return to us. And how fared the mission?"

"The deed is done," he says, and shows him the bloodied feather. "Talal is dead."

"Oh," says Malik, "I know, I know, I know. In fact…" and he smacks the air, coming an inch from Altair's face. "In fact," he bellows, "the entire city knows! Have you forgotten the meaning of subtlety?"

"A skilled assassin ensures his work is noticed by the many."

"No. A skilled assassin maintains control over his environment."

"We can argue the details all you'd like, Malik," Altair huffs. "But the fact remains, I've accomplished the task set for me by Al Mualim."

"Go, then. Return to the old man. Let us see with whom he sides."

But it is a tired argument, oh, it is a tired year. Al Mualim will favor Altair. He will give the novice a higher rank, return him a weapon or two. Before long everything will be as it was.

And Altair has the gall to sound sympathetic when he says, "You and I are on the same side."

Malik can hardly look at him. Malik must add these details to his map of hell.

Altair leaves the bureau then, leaves Jerusalem, rides for home. Leaves behind ruins new and old. The Dai of Jerusalem draws his maps and tends to his duties. The bureau fills with ghosts.