AN: vox nihili: voice of nothing

That took a while! We've reached the story's final arc, which - whoa now. Hard to believe.

Vox Nihili

There was a book Malik read once, borrowed from Dai Faraj. It spoke mostly of maps and triangulations, of the ghosts of roads and the newborn stars, but it also told of an ancient king. This king, cast out of his kingdom by a nephew's scheme, wandered in the wilderness for many months: a Moses without the followers, without the voice of God. Eventually he settled in a new place; in time he again became great. Malik remembers the book's sketches, but he can't remember the name of the king, or the fate of the treacherous nephew.

That king lived and died a long time ago. Malik doesn't know why any of it should matter now.

For a day and a half after the assassin remnants reach the caves the Dai runs around trying to organize. He sets up a rationing system for the food and water; he cleans a spot for the wounded and puts any man who knows how to set a limb or swab a gash to work; he sets aside the smallest of the caves for himself and Altair and puts a heavy guard at the entrance; those who fled with their families he sends to a nearby village, where they might find actual beds for their wives. A few of the women of Masyaf's back garden are here too, somehow: they look at him with soft familiarity and when it turns out they are all trained in herbs and healing (Al Mualim's secrets at work even now) Malik shrugs off propriety and lets them help tend the injured men.

He wants to send Sef and Darim to the village with the families, but Darim refuses to go, and rather than get into a fight with the Master's child in front of everyone Malik waves him off in disgust. "Better they stay where they can't be kidnapped," Rauf points out, so Malik orders them to always stay within sight of the caves and promises he'll beat them himself if they disagree.

"If we were regular novices you wouldn't care," Darim says, sulky and overtired. "Everyone else is getting ready to fight. And I saved you and Father, you know that I can."

"But you are not regular novices," Malik snaps, overtired himself. "And there are enough problems to handle without adding on the two of you."

"My father can handle them then. No one ever said it should be you."

"Go sit by your father. And don't tell me my place again."

Darim only sneers and pulls Sef off by his sleeve. He looks as if he's won something, and Malik isn't so sure he's wrong.

The rationing, the families, the heirs…and what else needs be done…?

A thousand things, all at once.

The men are uprooted and frightened, so Malik tries to calm them down through Rauf, who's good with crowds and chatter. Let the rumors be on their side for a change: say they will recover their strength and smash through Abbas's skeleton force. To add some meat to the gossip Malik gathers up four assassins who came to the caves from villages other than Masyaf, after hearing the news. Relying on their comparative energy, since they haven't had to fight their way here, Malik sends them off to deliver messages: one man to the bureau in Jerusalem, one to Acre, one to Damascus, and one to the assassins milling in Izmir. The messages are all the same.

We have been betrayed. Give the Master your best men. Return with the messengers and be ready to fight.

And when the messengers are gone he finds some more and sends them to other villages, to beg supplies and round up stationed assassins. He does all this and a dozen things more, until the sun is low in a red sky and he's wobbly on his feet from exhaustion—he does all this to keep busy, while stragglers reach the caves in bunches or alone, and still there is no sign of Raed and Malik's child.

Finally a journeyman finds Malik where he's slumped against a cave wall, eyes shut, letting the stone's natural coolness soak through his flushed skin. "Dai," says the journeyman, "Your son is here."
Malik runs, leaves the main cave mouth and is blinded by the sudden shock of sun. He stands quite dumb and useless for a moment, fumbling to raise his cowl over his eyes, and then someone touches his arm and he hears Tazim's impatient squawk and clarity comes to him, sharp as ice water against bare flesh.

Malik lowers his arm and Tazim is pushed into his grasp. He looks down at his son, sees a dirty, tear-streaked face and a pudgy hand swatting the air. The indignant baby squints up at his father and then wails, probably to prove a point. Instantly Malik starts swaying, rocking slightly on his heels without even meaning it. It calms Tazim down, it usually does, and only when his son's quiet does Malik realize it wasn't Raed who touched his arm.

There's a different man in front of him, vaguely familiar from the time in Jerusalem. Behind him are two other journeymen, standing on either side of an older woman in a purple scarf. The uniform makes everyone anonymous, but the woman…Malik knows her face.

He looks from Raed's wife to his sons. He braces for the news.

The journeyman who gave him Tazim says, "Dai Malik, Raed told me to take your son to you, myself and some others—we traveled through the hills to be safe, it was a long journey. He stayed behind to keep the path clear and…and we haven't seen him since. Is he here? Did he beat us here? His sons came another way but haven't found him either."

Damn him. Damn everything. "I haven't seen him," Malik says, and tries not to notice the sour taste on his tongue.

"Aren't there still stragglers coming through?"

"There are."

"Then perhaps he will still come," one of the others says. "Father could still come."

"He could. I'll send a patrol to look for him, to find him if he's hurt…"

The words fall to the ground in lumps. Malik can hardly look at the others; he keeps his eyes on Tazim instead. He would make any sacrifice for this child. He would suffer any price…

Raed's son says, "If Father's died, he's died for the Order. He would not regret it."

Malik shakes his head. "The rest of us might. I don't want to believe it, not yet. I'll send a patrol. You should rest, you've had as rough a time as anyone. When I find something, I'll let you know."

"I'm not tired or hurt. I want to be on the patrol," the son says. His brother nods. So does the Jerusalem journeyman. Malik puts up a feeble protest because he feels he ought, but no one is fooled and no one is swayed. If it wasn't for Tazim Malik would probably put himself on the patrol too, never mind running the Order.

"I owe Raed everything," he says. "Everything."

The Jerusalem journeyman says fiercely, "We will find him."

"Inshallah," Malik says. God willing. If somewhere there is a god. If somewhere just this once. But he can't scrape the sourness from his tongue. Raed and his maddening sense of honor. Raed bent under the burdens of others. God damn it, Altair has been right all along, it's useless to keep close to anyone in this life. Useless to have family or friends.

Dangerous, Malik thinks. Another week of this life and I might just start to believe that. He nods at the men, tells them to rest and eat and come tomorrow's dawn he will send them out to find miracles. They all murmur ascent, and he turns to go.

But then Raed's wife speaks.

"My lord, your son is hungry," she says. "It must have been a difficult trek. You should feed him."

"I will, yes. His wet-nurse is here. Is there anything you need? Some separate space…?"

She shrugs, hazel eyes flickering. "I didn't always understand my husband's choices," she says, as if she's answering some other question. "But I always trusted him. And I trusted the men he chose to follow."

Malik says, "He told me once that I should do whatever brings me peace. I rarely seem to take his advice, but he always gives it, along with his faith. And he…" Unexpectedly his throat closes; he chokes a breath through, but Tazim is making enough noise for both of them. Malik would like to tell this woman before him to envy the hot, simple grief of children. "He never understands what it is to be the person responsible for that faith. It's a frightening duty."

"Lord Malik. My husband died for you and for Grandmaster Altair. He told me to leave Masyaf and I did. Now I'm here, and I see you in front of me, with your child. And that much I can understand."

"We'll find him," says Malik. "I'll send out the patrol."

The meaningless promise can't touch her. She only regards him, unflinching, separate entirely from her assassin sons or the dirt that cakes the hems of her dress. "Malik," she says, then pauses, thoughtful: "But where, Lord Malik…where is Altair?"

-i-

Bad news: come two week's time from the battle and the heart and muscle of the true Brotherhood is still crammed into a series of sweltering caves, grumbling and glowering, stir-crazy with confused children underfoot. Food supplies are running low, but even the worst suffering could be bearable if not for the crushing wait, boredom mixed with frayed nerves. All these homeless men with swords and rumors, stewing in their sweat.

Most of the younger novices have been tasked with helping the women watch the wounded and mend clothes, and most take their orders dutifully, but Darim is livid. He's found a sword from somewhere, a ridiculous thing that must weigh half as much as he does, but he plants himself in a group of older men and cleans it for hours on end. Malik doesn't have the time to argue with him; at least Sef is content to watch Tazim.

Worse news: the messengers Malik sent to the bureaus have all sent pigeons back.

Jerusalem's bird is the first to arrive. Its bureau leader, a man Malik chose himself to serve in his absence, swears fealty up and down the thin paper. He adds that he is sending as many men as he think he can spare, to aid in the recapture of Masyaf. A pleasing outcome, although frankly Malik is not sure where he's going to put those men.

The message from Acre, though, is less welcome. The old Rafik Jabal has been dead for years, and that is a shame for more reasons than the obvious; he was there to witness Altair shaming Abbas at Al Mualim's burning, and he was there to quell the outrage after. A loyal man who saw the Son of None's rise and fall and rise again, and stood by the Creed to his last.

The new Rafik is not someone Malik knows well, although he has heard from others that he is a weak man given to fretting in the bureau long after he should have decided a target's fate. The men under him grumble and ask to be moved elsewhere, or else grow fat in their sloth while their leader stalls.

It's an issue Malik thought he'd have time to deal with once the mysterious Mongols were gone. Now the man writes that, though Acre is a largely Christian city with several Christian assassins, and therefore should have no love for extremist Abbas, he cannot send any men to aid Altair. Things go poorly in Acre, he writes, there are uprisings and famines—as if there aren't always uprisings and famines in Acre. Since the first round of crusades Acre has been a city tilting into disaster. Now the fool Rafik uses that as an excuse. But at least he promises not to deal with Abbas's emissaries, should he send some.

The Damascus bureau leader can't even promise that.

Its assassins are largely lapsed Muslims, and Malik doesn't have the same connections there he has in Jerusalem, where most of the assassins are men who once fought directly under his command. His old friend and neighbor Sayyid Hamid lived there, and was one of the Order's greatest dealers in information and arms—but only two years ago Malik said the Janazah prayer and poured the three handfuls of dirt into the man's grave.

Being there felt like a sham. He hasn't thought himself Muslim or much of anything else since he was a child. Religion was his father's lifeblood, but for Malik it became something to read about in Dai Faraj's books.

But Hamid was a friend, and Hamid had no sons left. So Malik said the prayers.

(And felt a crumbling inside for a man dying without family in a city he despised.)

And now there are no men left to go through but the Damascus Rafik, who—writes the messenger on torn paper with a bloody thumbprint at the top—has clearly made his choice. The messenger was chased out of the bureau upon arrival, by an assassin of all people. He never even had a chance to speak to the Rafik.

The messenger noted even as he fled that there were quite a lot of hard-eyed men in the bureau, men he didn't recognize. Men who looked less like Brothers and more like Ali's mercenaries.

But at least the Damascus Rafik is no Acre ditherer. Malik does have to give him that.

The assassins in Izmir say they will come back. But they are very far away.

So the news is mostly bad, and then a fifth bird comes flapping in and its message is from Maria. She's incensed at the disaster, she's even more incensed at the damned Acre bureau leader, and she's absolutely coming to the caves. Malik pictures the former knight riding in to talk battle strategies, to plan a war. Well and good enough.

Then he pictures her discovering how he's handled Darim (to say nothing of her husband). Her boy, her first-born, her heir, her son who Malik was supposed to be watching crash-landed onto an Apple-wielding Abbas in the middle of a losing battle.

Malik A-Sayf fears very few people. He thinks that just now he might fear Maria most.

A tap on his shoulder. "Safety and peace, supposedly."

He turns, Maria's missive crumpled in his fist. Rauf looks at him, scratching at his chin. Usually he keeps his lower face masked, but not in exile, so Malik can see the strands of white in his beard. Ridiculous. They're all of them getting old.

"Malik, we have a problem."

"Do we."

"I mean another problem. A side problem. If the major problem is a tumor then this is a side-growth…"

"Rauf. What's the problem?"

"One of the assassins—Rizq, I don't know if you know him—says he wants to leave. He's from around here, and he says hiding in caves isn't what he agreed to. It isn't in the Creed, he says."

Malik rubs at his eyes. There's a ball of pressure there, fatigue congealing around stress, and he would feel ten years younger if he could just remove it. "Allow me a guess," he says, "his friends all agree with him and he has a lot of friends."

"Er, yes. But also—"

"Also?"

"Also there are those who aren't his friends, and they're saying he's actually an Abbas spy going to give us all up. Which, it isn't so hard to imagine. I don't trust Rizq half as much as I trusted the man who nearly took my fingers off back in Masyaf. And him I had to kill! Who knows, Malik, who knows about any of it? It's no easy thing running an army."

Maybe that's what spurs him: what Rauf says. Or maybe it's that the patrols he sends out daily always come back without Raed. Maybe it's the mutters of a horror in Al Masyaf, the people hiding in their homes while Ali raves and Abbas looks misplaced. Maybe it's the grumbling army that was never meant to be an army, crammed into storage rooms like some khalīfah's mistreated servants.

Maybe it's all those things. Maybe it's that Malik is tired of playing Grandmaster while the real Grandmaster stays silent.

No one begrudges their leaders their private room, even with the crowding, it's so small. But that could change. Malik, busy as he is, has hardly been in there, can hardly remember what it means to eat and sleep and relax. Sef usually takes Tazim outside, in front of the cavern mouth where the guards can see them, for the fresh air. Darim has embedded himself with those journeymen. Most days it's only Altair inside.

Malik balls up Maria's letter and stalks in past the guards.

"Safety and peace," he says, "although I'd like to remind you we have neither."

Altair has his back to the entranceway. The massive barrels of grain have been dragged out to make room but the dirt floor is still pockmarked by their late presence. In one of these indentations sits the Son of None, alone as ever. Alone as he's always professed to prefer.

The pouch containing the Apple rests next to him. Angry words dance behind Malik's teeth, frustrated and still without aim. Altair has yet to touch it in the caves, at least that Malik's seen.

"Well then, Grandmaster, which piece of bad news would you like to hear first?" He waits. No response. "Our food supplies are running low. But that you knew already. Some of the women are complaining about some of the men, and some of our more enlightened Brothers are complaining about our less enlightened Sisters. But I'm sure I told you this two days ago. Well?"

Nothing. Malik taps the wrinkled parchment to his thigh, then lets it drop. "Your wife is coming," he says. "They still haven't found Raed. He was loyal. And my friend."

Altair seems to consider this, tilting his head. But head tilts aren't what Malik's after. "Goddamn it, novice," he exhales. "Will you sit here and do nothing forever? You're supposed to be the Brotherhood's protector. Nothing is true, everything is permitted, do you remember it? Damn you, will you cower now of all times? You? You listen to no one. You never lose."

The Son of None looks at his Apple, not at his second.

"Abbas cannot be allowed to control the Order's heart much longer. He'll destroy everything you've built! Meanwhile you sit here and you sulk."

Finally, Altair stirs. He shoots Malik one of his better glares and says: "I do not sulk."

"And yet what I see before me says otherwise."

"I am considering."

"You've been considering for weeks. There's no more time for considering!"

"Should I lead my men blindly, then? You're the one who always used to lecture me about patience and preparation. 'You cannot know anything, you must always expect to be wrong.' Didn't you say it?"

"I said it."

"Fine. Then I am preparing."

Under these circumstances smug Altair is irritating but acceptable. Malik goes to him, tucks his legs underneath himself and leans forward. "At least tell me what you're preparing."

"It's a difficult mission," Altair murmurs. "We could storm the gates as the Templars did. Maria is an expert general, and we might have the sheer force of numbers to break through. Either way men will die by the dozens if not the hundreds, numbers the Order won't sustain. To say nothing of the well-armed losers afterwards.

"Or," he continues, "we might negotiate. Maria is also an expect tactician, though I doubt Abbas will talk to her. And though I'd have to feed my tongue to the vultures to treat with the likes of him."

Malik snorts. "True enough."

"We could surrender." Now Altair is grinning darkly. He looks almost his usual self. "Abbas will probably kill both of us, and our families to make sure. He'll try to run the Brotherhood like a Caliphate and it'll be overwhelmed by someone's army within the year. Perhaps he'll keep one of us alive for torture. Then at least we'll be around to laugh."

"You're forgetting one option," Malik says. "You could take the Apple."

Altair snaps up his head. He frowns, peers through slitted eyes; Malik sits still, knowing he's under the weight of Altair's Eagle's Vision.

"You would suggest that? All of a sudden, after…ah. I see." His eyes stay slits, his voice freezes. But in his shoulders there's a definite and childish slump. "You mean to say that I may as well use the Apple, since you won't be around to lecture. What do you care what it brings back or who it corrupts?" He flicks a hand out at the bare room. "You won't be there. You sit and talk war with me for laughs, or else you manage things here just to rub in how lost I'll be once you're gone. You don't care about any of this. It's just your payback for—for that ghost."

"Hottaha fi teezak," Malik says hotly. "Stick it up your ass."

"…Mm." Some of the starch leaks from Altair's voice. "I suppose that was rude."

"You should be ashamed."

"I apologize."

"No, you don't." And no he doesn't. Malik shakes his head. "Listen, Altair. I know what needs to be done. It came to me just before, when Rauf was talking…he said it was no easy thing to run an army. And he was right even though he was wrong. We're trying to run an army, you and I, and we're not very good at it."

The Dai speaks quickly now. "You said it yourself, this is a tough mission. And what mission ever saw us lead an army against the Templars? Against the most dangerous men we sent one man, two men. Who killed Robert de Sablé, Altair? Not an army. Not a general's bodyguards. You."

Altair catches his meaning quick. He frowns, but his eyes are dancing. "Then I should go alone and execute Abbas. Dab a feather in his blood. Report his death to the local bureau."

"Not alone. I'll go with you. Ali is there also, don't forget: a second target. Two targets for two men. We find them, we kill them, we vanish. Like shadows of hell." He meets Altair's eye and holds it. Hard. "For such well-guarded targets, we send Master Assassins, the best we have. You and I."

The moment holds and holds and holds and then Altair grumbles: "But missions we go on together tend to be disasters." Malik blinks.

Then he is snickering so hard they're almost giggles. Giggling, while the Eagle of Masyaf preens like a peacock. Uglier than a peacock, though. Maybe a peahen? Now Malik is half-hysterical. How out of character, but—Altair the peahen of Masyaf.

Said peahen seems to realize he's lost control somewhere. He prods Malik's leg. "It isn't funny. What if we should fail?"

Malik chokes down his laughter, more or less. "Then we die, as with any assassin on a failed mission. Then Rauf and Maria are in charge. They can run the Order in tandem. He's good with the men and he knows our traditions, she's a skilled fighter and her outside contacts are key. And if they should fall then someone else will take their place. The Brotherhood isn't a person, Altair. You killed and burned Al Mualim, nothing more."

"But the Apple…? Hardly a stealth weapon."

"A backup. Pure stealth is well and good but look at our targets. The assassins in Masyaf are just that. If we can't get past unseen at first, then we offer up our bait. Or I offer, I should say, offer to bring the artifact to Abbas. They'll suspect a trap but none of them will dare come near it, or stop me while I hold it. Abbas and Ali will come running. Meanwhile you…"

"Are in the shadows. Yes." Altair nods, tight and eager. Another notch on the wall, another story added to his legend. Robert and Al Mualim and Abbas…his first kill was unplanned (his first kill was Malik's fault) and since then he has never stopped killing. Never stopped trying to correct it.

Malik sits back, satisfied. Somewhere is the thought that if he dies he will leave his son twice an orphan, that he has no business making promises, that family can only condemn. But Altair also has that burden now. They suffer together, then. It's only fair.

Somewhere is the thought that this is his last mission, and then a life of peace, while Altair goes on killing to make up for the one that made him retch.

"A good plan…yes…clever, Dai Malik, you've thought it through well. Even the Piece of Eden…"

"I said you should take the Apple," Malik shrugs. "I didn't say you should use it."

-i-

They leave early, on a morning strangely cold for the season. Almost cold enough to make a man believe in ice. Three people know that they've left: Maria, still a day away by fast horse, and Rauf, crouched over a letter he's writing to his Dima in his crabbed, messy hand. And Raed's wife.

Malik went to her, knelt before her, told her he was off to repay an eternal debt. She only looked at him, candlelight an unreadable script across her face.

The available supply of horses is limited. Altair still manages to find a white stallion with flowing mane to ride, for the extra drama. Malik picks a brown mare so docile he has to keep nudging it, lest it forgets it's meant to walk.

They could make it to Masyaf well before sunset, but they plan to wait until morning to attack. Morning, before dawn, in that hazy sunless time where men on patrol rub sleepy eyes. The Brotherhood has always woken up early as a rule, and even if things have grown lax under Abbas's ineptness, there will still be some men up for dawn prayer. So the timing must be perfect. They make camp close to the village, but not so close that Abbas's patrols might stumble across them, and they wait.

At nightfall they build a fire. There's no hope or desire to sleep. They sit around the burning wood scraps instead. The fire hisses and pops, and runs smoky.

"You never were any good at building fires," Malik says.

"I don't need to waste time building one. I kill my target and leave."

"Truly, Altair," Malik sighs, "you will never change."

"Nor you."

At this the Dai lifts an eyebrow. "No? I think I have changed many times."

"Your arm is nothing." Altair is wiping his hidden blade with the hem of his tunic, though it already shines like a fallen star. There are more stars still risen, untold eternities of them: a cool light, and an old one. Altair doesn't look up when he talks. "Nor your family. Nor mine. In the end we are both here, side by side in the desert waiting to strike."

"Yes, perhaps…" Malik pulls his robes tighter around his shoulders, feeling again the urge to use both arms in the process. How long does it take to unlearn instinct? How long did it take Altair to accept that he had children, and worse, that he loved them?

"Of course," says Altair, "you remember the first time."

For a moment Malik thinks he's talking of the childhood trek with Kadar, and he almost snaps that of course he remembers it. There are days when he remembers little else. What does Altair think, that he's lost the memory of his brother along with his body?

Or has he lost that? Ghosts from the Apple, cruelly warped phantasms signifying nothing and yet—if he turns quick enough he might just see…

(It hurts to be here, the Kadar-thing said. But Malik has missed him for so long he almost doesn't care. Hurting here might be better than a painless void. Right? Wouldn't Kadar agree?)

But Altair isn't talking of Kadar in the desert. Why would he when he wasn't there? He continues, "The time we stole the book from the Templars and camped for the night," as if there could be no experience in the desert more important than that.

Malik doesn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. "Yes, I remember how you almost drowned," he says pointedly.

"Well, what about you?"

"What about me? I know how to swim. And I got us our horse." Malik certainly has not been keeping score just in case the conversation should ever arise. Certainly not. "And translated the book of lists so we knew what we were looking at. And—"

"And went back to the Templars."

Altair prods at a loose ember off the fire with his boot, letting the ash darken the leather. Malik sighs again. "Yes. And went back to the Templars."

"Needlessly," adds Altair. "Your brother would have been fine."

"We didn't know that. We don't know that. Allah's sake, will you never forget old arguments?"

"Hypocrite."

"Bastard." Malik pulls himself abruptly to his feet. Something in his back twinges, and in his lost arm too. He wonders where Altair hides his hurts. "Mabrook, you've won that fight already! Going back was a waste of time and only served to cause me injury. I know! And in the end you were right!"

"Malik—"

"Is that why you brought him back? To make sure I remembered?"

"I never wanted to bring it back. Malik, it isn't Kadar. It's an illusion."

"My illusion. Why do you get that too?"

"I don't know. The Apple likes to torment its wielder."

Malik says fiercely, "It would not be a torment for me to speak to my brother," and Altair locks both eyes on the fire and, just barely, nods.

"But you were not the one who killed him," he says.

The Dai considers the Son of None, thoughtful. Or angry. Or both.

"But," says Altair, "we have spoken of this before. In Jerusalem."

"Yes."

"This fire is more smoke than flame. Is there more wood?"

"Doubtless you can go pick some weeds, novice."

"When it's my arm that carries the hidden blade? Too risky. Go find some yourself."

"I'm going to go feed the horses. You should pick weeds so you don't freeze. Wait until after you kill Abbas to die in some spectacularly dumb manner. You'll be more useless then."

He turns his back on his Grandmaster's grumbling and strides over to the horses, both of which have been corralled in a little patch of dirt lined with half-dead trees. The fire, and the dumb novice guarding the fire, is more-or-less blocked from here. A relief. Altair was right to say their joint missions are always disasters…

Malik rubs a hand over his mount's neck, but stops. Both horses are standing quiet and with ears pricked—alert and wary, they nicker quietly at each other, eyes rolling. Malik pats his horse's neck again, head cocked.

Someone behind him steps on a twig and hisses, "Shh!"

He turns in a smooth circle, grabs the hand thrown up in a block, kicks the feet out from under the legs, plants a knee in the squirming back and jabs the face into the dirt with his elbow. Then he grabs the arm and pulls it backwards, hard, and he would pull it harder still, hard enough to pop the joint, if it weren't for the strangled voice that cries out: "Uncle…!"

Malik turns off the assassin's instincts and actually looks at who he's caught. Then he swears, with violence and creativity, and gets up. "God damn it, Darim. Why are you here?"

Darim swipes sullenly at the dirt on his clothes. His sword knocks against his leg when he clambers back to his feet. "Came to help," he mutters.

"Help? Here? You followed us from the caves?"

"Uh huh." With his father's smirk: "And you didn't notice. Not even Father noticed. I crept after you the whole way, and Sef didn't even see me leave."

"Probably because the idea was too absurd even to comprehend. Little idiot, do you have any idea how much danger you could have walked into?"

"Of course. I don't care. I want to help."

"How could this infant help?"

"I'm not a kid, Uncle. Brothers younger than me go on missions all the time. I'm an assassin."

"You're a kid who happens to dress like an assassin," Malik grits out, "and if you're very lucky one day you might become one!"

Darim glares. "Masyaf is my home too," he says, "and I'm the heir. Not you."

"That doesn't matter. Does this look like a training ring to you?"

"I don't care. Please, Uncle." He grabs at the front of Malik's robes: assassin's robes only, no cumbersome black for this mission. Startled, the older man tries to pry off fingers like a dead man's, stiff with rigor mortis. "You have to let me help. I'll do anything, it doesn't matter. I'll guard the horses."

"We're sending the horses back tomorrow. And you along with them! When your father sees you here he'll…"

"No, you can't send me back!" Darim looks as desperate as Malik's ever seen him. "Back to the caves with Sef to wait for Mother like a child. I'm not a child! I saved you both in Al Masyaf. I'm not afraid."

"That's the problem. A true assassin respects fear. If you were an assassin and not a novice you would…" Malik stops trying to peel Darim off and puts his hand to his forehead. "My god, I'm arguing with Altair. Are you his son or his double?"

"If I say I'm his double will you let me stay to fight? Please. I can do it, I won't get in your way."

"Why are you so determined to fight now, Darim? No one expects it of you. This mission is beyond most of the adult Order. It might be beyond your father and me."

"Because—because they, my mother, they called her…and Sef's always listening…" Darim struggles. "I'm Altair's son," he says, "I'm just as good as him." But when he sees Malik looks unswayed something else comes into his eyes, and he says with earnest feeling (it does sound like earnest feeling): "I have to protect my brother, don't I? And my mother. It's, ah. It's my duty as the eldest son."

We can do this. Think of how astonished your brother would be…You can avenge your Dai, Malik. You can seek revenge.

"No," Malik murmurs. "You're not Altair's double at all."

Darim pats his side. "I've got my sword. I've got throwing knives. I'll do whatever you say. I have to do this for my family."

"They—we don't need your help."

"Like your brother didn't need your help when you went back to the Templars? You don't know that," Darim says sweetly.

"Wha…you eavesdropped?" Malik swats at him, ineffectively. "That conversation wasn't meant for you."

"But I did hear it."

"Fine. Then let's go find Grandmaster Altair, so we may all speak freely."

"Don't! He'll make me leave, I know he will. He doesn't trust me to do anything."

"I'm not going to lie to your father, Darim. He's my Master as much as he's your parent."

"It's not lying, it's not! I just…"

"You just?"

"I just want to help," says Darim, and balls both hands to his chest, and looks pleading. "Abbas tried to kill everyone I loved. Don't I get to fight back? Maybe you won't need me, but how can you know? Nothing is true, everything…"

"Don't quote at me."

"Uncle. Malik. …Dai Malik, I want to go on a mission. I want to help."

"You can help by staying where it's safe."

"Safe for how long? I couldn't stand it if Abbas hurts Father, or if he finds Sef. I'd have to die."

"Don't be so dramatic."

"It's the truth. I swear it."

"Darim, listen to me…"

But just then what Malik's thinking is more important than what he says. He's thinking of a vast desert, dotted with hardscrabble villages and hunger and wolves. He's thinking of burdens. He's thinking of his little brother. He's thinking of cave walls collapsing, and those who turn around, and those who don't come back…

He's thinking that the Piece of Eden torments its wielder. He's not thinking that its wielder hardly knows torment at all, except that some hidden part of him is.

"I want to go on this mission," says Darim. Malik decides he should stick to thinking strategy. It's a preposterous idea. "I'll do whatever you tell me." Malik shakes his head.

"Ok," he says.