AN: It's so refreshing to write Malik making the big mistakes for a change.

Bodies at the Arches

This is the plan.

In the part of desert night so wet with stars it defeats darkness, the part of night that squeezes your insides with cold all the harsher because it knows that soon it must let day break its back: in the worst of the night Malik approaches. Altair, not asleep, nevertheless starts as if pulled out of a dream when Malik's hand begins its rustling.

"What," he says. Malik only smiles at him and settles over his torso, a knee to either side.

"Now? But after…" Altair rises on his elbows, teeth biting into his lip, sifting furiously through imagined scenarios to explain this one. "The devil would you do this now?"

"Shh," says Malik. It's slow-going, undoing the ties on Altair's shirtfront with only one hand, even a hand as clever as his. He bothers only up to the third one, enough so that he can pull away the fabric and expose the Master's chest. Altair is still demanding answers in a voice rent around the edges with breathless lust, but he groans and falls abruptly quiet when Malik's teeth close around his nipple.

(This is the plan: Malik has sent Darim out scouting. There's nothing to scout here but there's much he shouldn't see.)

"Malik," says Altair, and it's a tribute to his willpower that he can grab Malik by the shoulder and pull him up, momentarily stilling the mouth and hand. "What are you doing?"

He has to be careful here, because Altair isn't stupid. Many things, many unbearable things, the heat under Malik's skin and the prickling on his neck, but not stupid. The Grandmaster who rebuilt a wounded Order and ignored a ghostly Kadar cannot be dumb.

"Isn't it obvious? Like we never used to fuck on mission nights?"

"Fine, but after…" A narrowing of eyes, but Malik isn't fooled. The one hand may be on his shoulder, but the other is on his belly, burning holes through the fabric. Altair frowns, but only because he has to, only for show: "Are you Malik or some djnni that's carried him off?"

Malik has been indulgent, but in the back of his mind the minutes are passing and the dawn is lurking. He doesn't have time to be still.

"Honestly," he says, flippant enough. "Why does forgiveness have to be tied to sex? This isn't about you. I haven't had time to do anything for a month, and tomorrow I'm off on a dangerous mission and maybe I'm about to die. No sense in wasting the night. But if you'd rather not…"

But that's enough for Altair. With a growl—met by Malik's answering snarl, true enough that this has nothing to do with romance, this is practically two animals fucking—he flips the younger man over. In his haste he tries to strip them both at the same time until Malik points out that they'll freeze to death with the fire gone so low.

"Then what," Altair spits out, "do you want?"

"Touch me," Malik orders. "Touch me and touch yourself. Keep your hands instead of your mouth busy for a change."

And close your eyes, he adds. Yes…yes, just like that. Press yourself against me and…ah. Mh, yes, you're distracted now. Yes. And you like when I touch you, like this, under your clothes and everywhere else, you hardly know where my hand is going…and you hardly care…careful…

He waits until they are both almost at the brink. Forcing the cries back into his throat, he keeps his eyes wide upon the sight of Altair stroking faster now and utterly lost in himself, almost defenseless except you'd be a fool to think that, you'd be dead in seconds, and Altair would stand there naked wiping gore off his sword without a second glance. Almost…almost…

Now.

Malik pulls his hand back into his own pocket. A second later the feel of that hand on his cock crescendos and he forgets everything—but he'd planned for that as well and he's done what needed doing, he no longer needs to think—and his voice tangles with Altair's—God hope Darim's gone scouting far away—

"Fuck," he shouts. "Fuck, fuck." And again as Altair collapses on top of him, caught in his own wave. "God damn it. Altair, oh, fuck, oh…" But why should there be tears? Just the hint of them, pricking at the backs of his eyes. He perhaps didn't plan for this. "Fuck! Fuck you!" He claws at Altair's back, knees at his stomach, does his best to draw blood with all other purposes forgotten. The cowl's come off and he tears at his hair. "Oh, fuck, fuck you, Altair, fuck you, fuck you..."

Altair stays still and lets him.

(Not the first time. Once they were in Jerusalem…)

Then Malik comes back to himself. With a little curse of surprise (because what foolishness has he held onto anyway?) he shoves Altair off and sits up to adjust his clothing, with all the pride he can muster. Altair folds his legs underneath him, readjusts his cowl and hunkers over, watching the other man from the corner of his vision.

No one says anything for a good minute and a half.

Then Malik huffs, "The fire has gone completely out, novice," and bears himself away to find scrub to burn. It's safer out of Altair's eyesight after that embarrassing display.

And also:

This is part of the plan.

-i-

Come daybreak they set out—two men, and a boy behind. Malik says nothing to Altair of Darim. Says nothing of last night's first surprise, nor of the stalker he knows they have, the follower keeping careful and just out of sight. It isn't like Altair not to realize he's being followed.

But he doesn't seem to, and there are two plans, then, that must be followed: the assassinations, each man to his, secret and subtle, sudden as the wind whips off the fog; and the backup Altair will never admit to needing. The Grandmaster thinks that with Abbas and Ali both dead that the traitors, mercenaries and misled novices will be too demoralized to strike. He plans no retreat—how typical—but a victorious glower from the balcony of the fortress he will take back singlehandedly.

Malik thinks that a pretty dream, but unlikely. So he's tasked Darim with slipping into the village and keeping the river pass clear. Abbas knows it exists and will surely have set up guards, Malik told the boy; you must deal with them silently. Whatever happens that passage must be left open. Yes, Darim nodded, and then? And then, when the killing's done, there will be a way out while the rest of them panic. The assassins can return as a conquering force, approach Masyaf with full strength against a leaderless mob.

We will accomplish it all, and you need only tie up a few guards and watch over one road. Altair need never know until it is over and you are preening. This is not revenge.

"Malik," says Altair as they ride, "we are almost at the arches."

"Yes. We should see the first guards soon. Try to leave me some."

"We'll split at the main gates and go separately from there. Once they're dead we can meet…"

"By the river stairs," Malik interrupts. "Just in case."

Altair clicks his tongue against his teeth but doesn't argue. Clearly he has other concerns.

"And afterwards? When it's over and we've won?"

"Assuming it's over and we've won—"

"An assassin must never assume. I know." He looks at his hands clutching the reins and narrows his eyes. "I know we will win. I feel it. Like when we were young, the youngest Master Assassins ever, and there was no triumph but we caused it and no loss but what we allowed."

Malik lets his eyes close, briefly. Yes, he remembers it too. It isn't only Altair's arrogance. He remembers that day in Damascus, and not only that day either but hundreds just the same, fighting back to back with Altair on the garden promenade, shoving soldiers off a ledge. Running all over the city like joyful madmen, and Altair meant to be what he was and do what he did. Malik remembers his target that day—not the name, that's long forgotten, but the flabby face, the bejeweled hands—the arms' dealer's pleading—

"What joy in those days," says Altair, and he isn't wrong.

Malik says, "Fine. When it's over and we've won…?"

"What will you do then?"

The Dai frowns. Doesn't answer.

"Will it be as you said? Will you go?"

Nothing. Altair bristles. "I wouldn't waste breath asking except for last night—"

"Look." Malik points. "The arches." And beneath them some white figures. No mercenaries; perhaps they've gone or are too lazy for boring guard shifts. But the assassins he sees are hardly better. They do the Order no credit; Altair and Malik are practically on top of them by the time they stir.

"Let's kill all of them," is the last thing Malik says before he leaps off his horse. "No need to leave anyone behind to raise alarms."

"Of course," Altair says, insulted at the thought that he would even need the reminder. But it really isn't for him that Malik says it. It's for their straggler, who's only a novice, after all.

Anyway. No time left to worry now. Years and years, and always bodies at the arches: Malik sinks his first dagger into a shocked journeyman's throat.

-i-

They slip their way inside the wooden gates, and either it's easy because they're so skilled or it's easy because there are only two assassins there and neither is particularly sharp. Altair steals away, through the buildings. He'll climb as soon as he can, leap from roof to roof, so silent that not even the roosting doves will be disturbed. Malik once would do the same, but it's not as easy with one hand. He makes sure his cowl is straight and sticks to the alleyways instead, taking the chance to see how Masyaf is fairing.

It seems quiet. It seems half-abandoned. The damage from the battle hasn't been repaired and many a home has a caved wall or burnt roof. Carrion crows, black and fat, have almost overtaken the resident doves—no sign of any hawks or eagles, even at the perches—and fly low over piles of refuse left rotting in the street. No housewife clears the trash or swats away the fighting, noisy birds.

The windows in the huts are all shuttered, the benches outside empty, the wells bare of women drawing water or old men chatting in the sun. Again and again Malik passes perches where there should be assassins, where once men stood in patrols of two or more, but which have been left empty now. The carrion crows circle overhead, cawing and cawing. Even the wildlife is wrong today.

Malik reaches the overlook, where the path bulges out over the lower levels of the village. He crouches behind a hay cart and wonders where the flags have gone. Why would Abbas remove the Brotherhood's colors?

But instead of flags there are three men, mercenaries judging from the clothes and weapons and sun-scarred faces. They've dragged a bench to the middle of the path but can't seem to figure out how benches work; it's something of a sight to see the one of them, especially, so drunk he keeps toppling backwards to the roaring laughter of his friends.

So. A Masyaf where villagers cower inside, where garbage-feeding crows have replaced eagles, and where there are more drunk mercenaries than actual assassins. Malik lifts his eyes up to the fortress above. It can look foreboding, it can look welcoming, it can look a sign of safety, but today it looks threatening as only an enemy's castle can.

"Ho, you! Boy!"

Malik blinks, pulls farther behind the cart, but it isn't him the mercenary's shouting for. Three assassins—actual assassins, a novice and two older journeymen—have just come into sight up the curving path, and one of the mercenaries rights himself with a belch. "Boy! C'mere."

The assassins all stop, gone grim-faced to a man. Malik wonders at their hesitating. "What do you want?" one of the journeymen calls, a note of warning in his voice.

The mercenary bellies up to the group. He's armed, and bringing a great deal of attention to it in how he walks, and yet none of the assassins rise to the challenge. He sneers at all of them, but especially the novice. "I'm talkin' to yer," he says to the boy with a flash of brown teeth. Malik does have to give the novice credit for how little he flinches at the foul breath in his face. "Don't yer come when you're called?"

"I'm supposed to be on patrol," the novice mutters. His comrades are tense but quiet.

"Yer s'pposed to be treatin' us like honored guests. And we're out here in the hot sun, keepin' your shitheap safe, right? Y've got that army'a traitors breathin' down your neck and we're keepin' them off for yer."

"I'm sure they live in terror of you," the journeyman mutters. The mercenary raises his gaze to stare the man down, but keeps spitting in the novice's direction.

"S'pposed to be thankful for us. Showin' us gratitude. Right? Or'm I confused? Wanna ask the Master what he thinks?"

"Ok! I'm sorry," the boy bursts out. "We're just so undermanned."

"Not a man among yer. Just boy soldiers playin' pretend."

"What do you want?"

The mercenary bellows another laugh. "We're thirsty, whelp! Call this being grateful? We're parched to the bone." Behind him, his friend falls off the bench again.

The novice winces. "It's hard to get it…and you're not supposed to drink in the village proper. Master Altair always said—"

"Master Alll-tah-eeer," drawls the bully, and clamps a hand with fingers like cooked sausages to the novice's shoulders. "Said bousak, koondeh," he suggests, and neither of the journeymen say a thing in their Brother's defense.

Wilting visibly, the novice promises to fetch the drink. The mercenary kicks a sandaled, filthy foot into the boy's ankle—"Anta lateef," he laughs, "yer so kind!"—and waves the other two off like a shepherd waving off his barking dogs.

The journeymen trudge up the path, giving the benchful of idiots a wide berth, the very muttering picture of the dispossessed and disenchanted. "…to do," one is saying as they near the hay cart. "Can't fight them knowing the Master will take their side."

"I don't know," the other one says. "It isn't right. They aren't assassins, they shouldn't still be here."

"Fine, so you tell the Master that. We were nervous around Altair? At least he never killed his own for disagreeing with him."

"He, uh, he probably staged all those village raids, though. I mean, that's what Abbas said…"

"I keep thinking of that man they found in the caves," the journeyman says thoughtfully. "It wasn't right, what they did to him, even if he was against us. It wasn't true to the Creed."

"Well, uh, yes, but…"

"They killed him," the journeyman says. "That Raed. I keep thinking of that when I see these hired slayers running free."

If he notices the hay cart rock, as though someone by it rocked too, he doesn't say.

The journeymen move out of sight, and several minutes behind them comes the crestfallen novice. He too passes in front of the hay cart—but unlike his Brothers he goes no further than that.

Malik presses his back to the cart and the boy to himself, his hand clamped over his mouth. "Don't stir," he whispers, "don't make a sound. I'm not going to hurt you."

Wide-eyed, the novice nods. Malik relaxes his grip a bit but keeps his hand over his mouth. "I'm one of you," he starts to say, but already the boy's noticed there's only one hand holding him and his face goes ashen. He struggles, then; Malik tightens his grip again and lets him wear himself out. "Calm down," he says over the novice's fearful moan. "I'm not going to hurt you. We're both assassins, aren't we?"

He removes his hand then, to let him breathe. The novice licks his lips, deeply shaken. "You're Dai Malik," he whispers back. "You're the enemy…"

"Am I? Ask yourself who seems the bigger enemy now, myself or those idiots out there?"

As if on cue the mercenary shouts, "Where are you with the drink, koondeh? Greedy cur, I'll wring your neck if you've run off with it."

The novice is very still for a moment, and then: "Why are you here? Are…are you going to…?"

"You don't know," says Malik, "you've never known and you'll never know. You're only a novice, after all, so why should you? You're safe."

"But you are going to-! Is Master Altair here as well? It, with Master Ali it's, he said he'd treat the novices with respect but after he won the fortress he just let all the mercenaries lay about forever and said we have to do what they say. They aren't supposed to stay here like they're Brothers! And we're assassins, not servants."

Malik harrumphs. "Calls himself Master Ali now, does he? Telling. What does Master Abbas think of this?"

The novice whispers, "We never see him. Like with Master Altair but it's worse somehow. Um. He had a boy beaten once but that's all. I don't…" A hesitation that Malik is very interested in. "I don't think he's very happy."

"And where does such an unhappy man spend his days? Not in the great hall?" It's fortunate news. An assassination in such an open place would be hard even for Altair.

"Usually he's just in his rooms. I, er, don't know where those are."

"I can guess," says Malik. What would Abbas claim as his own? Why, anything that once belonged to Altair. Altair could kill a man in his own rooms without looking. Fortunate news indeed. "And Ali? Where has he gone?"

There's no uncertainty about that: "The back garden. He talks to mercenaries there, and that's where he met with all the village elders. He wanted them to plead loyalty like he was a king, but they wouldn't. He nearly threw one of them off the cliff."

"Did he? How do you know?"

"I, um, brought him a jug of wine," the novice admits with a sheepish grin.

"And then it took an awful lot longer to leave than it had to come in, I bet. Hm?" Malik smiles. "It's good to hear at least some of our novices haven't lost their spying edge. You can learn a lot with slow pours of wine."

"Dai Malik? If you come back and Master Altair comes back then…will we be in trouble?"

"You, I doubt it. Some others…" Malik glances over the lip of the hay cart and finds that one of the mercenaries is now face down in his own reek. "Well, the Grandmaster can be so foul-natured." He gives the novice a gentle shove. "Go," he says. "Don't worry about fetching anything for that lot. Just find somewhere quiet and stay there. Don't talk to anyone. Be grateful for the anonymity of your rank."

The novice nods; Malik watches him run back down the path until he's out of sight. Malik plans to have blood on his blade long before that one finds a man to tell.

He sits back on his heels with a heavy sigh. Raed is dead. In some way he'd already known. Will his sons blame Malik the way Malik once blamed Altair? And if so, will Malik redeem himself the way Altair…?

But this isn't the time for remorse. No longer a Dai or second or brother—now he is an assassin on a mission, and nothing else.

The back garden, then. But he won't be able to scale the cliff with only one arm, and he certainly can't stroll through the front gate. A puzzle only until he solves it, and then it will be a death sentence instead.

As he ducks out from behind the cart Malik throws a quick glance in the direction of the river path, not that he can see it from here. Has Darim got it clear yet? Even godless assassins must sometimes have faith.

-i-

Altair checks his rooms, of course—unchanged except for how the bed sheets have been scattered and twisted and dampened by sweat, a sight which brings a grim smile to his lips—and he glances into the main hall, and in some of the small hidden rooms where a Grandmaster, or a man pretending to be one, might linger. Finally he looks through a window in a narrow hallway suspended between fortress turrets, and below, in the back garden, is his target. Abbas is faced away from him, head angled towards the grass, but the black robe gives him away.

It's worth another smirk: he's stuck wearing the pair Altair's discarded for want of patching. How royal.

Altair considers. The decorative bars in the window can't be pulled loose, and he'll waste too much time going all the way around to climb up the cliff. Better to make his way down the fortress until he reaches the little overhanging wall that borders the garden on all sides but the drop-off. It'll make a decent springboard, but to get there he'll have to slink through who knows how many guards.

This is the fortress of the Brotherhood. This is the place of the Grandmaster. He will find his way.

Some small part of him grouses as he maneuvers through the halls that he should have to skulk his way through his own castle. But the rest of him thinks, as he comes up behind a man and leaves his neck twisted in place, only of the feel of thrashing, terrified flesh between his hands. It's assassination at its purist point, it's what he is. "Be at peace," he murmurs, to that man and the next. To every liar-Brother he must kill today.

I am trying, he thinks. I am trying my best to be worthy of this.

The pouch at his side knocks gently against his hip. It's been quiet today…the ghost, that is. Suspiciously quiet, as if it's readying itself for a great gloat. And there isn't the feel of the Piece of Eden waiting at his shoulder to be used. Altair resists pulling out the Apple to check, though. He did promise Malik he wouldn't.

The assassin slips through the next window large enough to fit through and heads down. Could anyone else climb a wall this sheer? Could anyone else almost melt into the night-cooled stone?

He drops from perch to perch like a shadow, like less than a shadow, like the essence of an eagle: the talons and beak and predatory grace reshaped into a man. The Eagle of Masyaf, he's heard the men call him when they thought he couldn't hear. Just as Al Mualim was the Old Man of the Mountain.

It's a better nickname, anyway, Altair concedes. He'll have to thank them. If he can ever face them without feeling like an usurped fool.

At least as a killer he knows what he's doing.

He nears the garden, dangling from a window with his feet braced against the wall. Below him a woman has joined Abbas, who's still turned away. Altair is mildly surprised that any of the women of the back garden would stay with someone as dogmatic as Abbas…then again, he only sees the one lady, with long black hair tied back with brown ribbon, dressed in a translucent robe drawn low across her breasts.

Someone above him yelps. Altair looks back up, right into a journeyman's startled eyes. He almost smiles; the trouble with sneaking around an assassin stronghold is that assassins know how to look down.

The journeyman opens his mouth to yell. Altair shoves himself up, over the window ledge, lifts his drawn legs between his straining arms and cracks the man in the chest with both feet. While the journeyman wheels backwards, Altair lowers his legs and with a neat little flip ends up inside the study room. He grabs the man by the hair, slams his face into the nearest table edge twice. By the second time the assassin moans and goes limp. Altair leaves him where he falls, turns back to the window and without hesitation hurls himself through.

He drops.

The garden wall slams against his feet.

He rises quickly along it, on his toes so the slate tiles don't clack, until he reaches the side of the fortress again. Here he can lurk where the wall overhangs the garden's edge but is overhung in turn by wide balconies above. There are fountains cut into the sloping landscape, thick grass in rich soil, fine pottery and plush cushions below him in the shade. Altair fought Al Mualim here. Fitting that Abbas should die here as well.

He will fight his enemies here forever—why else should it contain Kadar's grave?

(He can't see the grave from here, since Malik had it erected in a little corner by the edge of the cliff. Is it foolish to hope the ghost is over there, visiting itself, and thus too busy to intervene?)

Altair watches Abbas. He'd dropped too silently to be heard but still his lip curls a little at how easily Abbas is outwitted, how dumbly he bares his neck. He's looking at the woman now, his back to Altair. His vertebrae call love songs to the hidden blade.

The woman sits down next to Abbas, unsmiling. Altair feels more than hears the swick of the hidden blade as it slides between his fingers. He brings the exposed metal to his mouth and kisses it. No jeers? he asks the ghost. But it and the Apple are still silent. He felt so light climbing just now, as though he's finally gotten used to the artifact's impossible weight. Maybe he has. Maybe the worst that could be happened when the ghost spoke to Malik, maybe Altair is just strong enough that he could endure even that horror. Maybe he has broken the Apple, bent it to his will at last.

Hubris is dangerous, he reminds himself. And he has dallied here too long. Perhaps, if Malik has already killed Ali, he will be watching from somewhere. The kill must be perfect, just in case.

He loosens his muscles, steadies his breath. Leans forward. A perfect kill in the back garden, for Malik. In front of and below him, the woman slides a manicured finger along Abbas's inner thigh.

Altair leaps—

has time to think in that millisecond between life and death that he's never seen Abbas act so casual with a woman before

—and crashes down on top of his target with his full weight. His blade crunches through the spine and out the other side of the throat. The woman screams, leaps to her feet and runs. No guards come bursting through the garden gates as he'd expected. The body twitches, spasms as Altair pulls out and retracts his blade. Then it crumples onto its face. Blood streams from it, heading downhill, darkening the white-blue ceramic and staining the grass.

The Grandmaster straights up. He should say the mantra—he should say it—he won't. But he does keep himself from kicking those stupid old robes. "You've lost," he spits, "after everything. You idiot, you idiot. All your life you hid behind God and jealousy when you could have been great. All your life a waste…" And he nudges the body over with his foot, to face this Brother and say the Creed.

The robes are the Grandmaster's but the face isn't Abbas. The world goes just a little off-center.

The man is young, first of all, hardly past shaving. And he has shaved, unlike Abbas with his bushy beard. The eyes are different, the face Oriental, probably a relatively recent recruit since only in the past couple of years has Altair made serious outreach that far East. And the hands are too free of callouses to hold swords tightly in dreams, as do Altair's hands, as do Abbas's hands, as do the hands of all assassins who survive past youth. The blood streams from the mouth and Altair doesn't have the power to put it back.

Someone lands lightly behind him. He whirls around, teeth bared, but it's Malik standing there, having found his own way to the garden wall.

"No Ali?" he asks. "Ah, but you've found your man."

"No, I haven't," Altair growls, and steps aside so that the Dai can see. Malik's eyes widen just slightly.

"But he's wearing the robes. Your robes."

"And he's the right height and body type, and with his back turned he looked just the same. And I have killed him."

"Hnn," Malik sighs, tensing his handsome face, "I wonder if they even told him he was going to die when they dressed him up and sat him out here…"

"We didn't," says a light, cheery voice. "Only told him it was a vital mission and had him on his way."

Altair and Malik turn on their heels as one. Guards are spilling through the garden gate—of course they are, that's no surprise—and with them Abbas looking blank-faced in regular whites, and Ali not even bothering to dress as an assassin, beaming from ear to ear, and, oh, and…

The Grandmaster is aware, vague in a way a Master Assassin never is, of how quickly Malik's face drops. He groans and Altair thinks, still vague, that he's never heard his second-in-command sound so old.

"You two are so good," Ali says, "so good. We never would have known you were here. He's not so good, though."

It is of course a ruse, because it has to be, because Altair knows where he left his sons. His family is with the others at the caves. Maria might have arrived today. His family is safe.

Ali has his hands clamped on the ruse's shoulders. His fingers are digging into the skin so tightly it must be painful, but the ruse's arms are tied behind its back and it can't do much else but bear it. "Don't look so surprised," Ali pretends to scold. "This is a reunion! Say hello."

"It's an illusion," Altair says to Malik, because after all he is very used to illusions, but Malik only looks at him with fear (Malik looks frightened) and Altair discovers he has no more oxygen left in his lungs.

"Say hello," says Ali again. He doesn't sound so cheerful now.

"Father," Darim cries. But Altair is silent with his suffocation, and can only stare at his son from a hundred worlds away.