Jerusalem
Before
Kadar has ripped through the knees of his leggings again, which will get him a scolding by the training instructor. Malik looks on him with exasperated fondness: this full-grown little brother, all bright eyes and chatter, and the decapitated head resting bloody on his lap. But wait – Malik frowns. Kadar is much too young for missions. Especially assassination missions. And whose head is that, anyway?
Kadar holds it out to him, hands against its blue-blush cheeks. "Now don't be mad," he says.
"Why would I be mad?" asks Malik, and waves a hand at the clotted air. "It's not your fault it's snowing."
"Now whatever you do, just don't be mad," says Kadar, and places the head carefully on the ground so that its eyes are watching Malik's. Robert de Sablé is almost instantly covered by a snowdrift, and Malik begins to dig frantically, hands burning then numb with a cold he's never felt – for he has seen snow only once, briefly, a handful of flakes that melted as they fell – but this snow is unending and he must find Robert, he must find his brother, he must find his parents and the flock, it would be easier if only he wasn't ten…
The Dai of Jerusalem snaps awake and is on his feet almost in the same movement. He swivels to the doorway of his little room, where Raed, masked in full informer gear, wastes no time with pleasantries or catch-up or for Malik to throw a robe over his leggings and bare chest, but launches into his report. "The rumors were right," he says. "He's here, just arrived. I saw him myself."
Malik is already at his wardrobe, pulling knives and daggers down the way someone else might pull down cloaks and scarves. "Show me," he says.
"My lord, de Sablé is heavily guarded and on the move, it might be better to…"
"Show me," Malik says. Raed bows his head.
-i-
Robert arrives in Jerusalem in spring, but Malik is distracted months before that. For some unknown reason, almost certainly just to be a pain in the ass, Altair has begun sending him letters. Quick-dashed scribbles on whatever paper scraps were at hand, creased from being tied to a messenger bird. Rarely do they come from Masyaf, but from whatever assassin waystation or bureau or wilderness checkpoint he happens to be in at the time.
The first few are simple descriptions of Altair's mission, his day, as if Malik cares. The Dai ignores three and responds to the fourth with a snarky line: Ho, novice, when did you learn to read? But responding is a mistake, for it only encourages Altair – and Altair needs no encouragement to begin with. Quite despite himself Malik finds he is keeping an open eye for those letters, those descriptions of Damascus or Acre…because it pays to stay informed, he tells himself, since he cannot be anywhere at once and he has no high opinions of the Acre rafik. Because it is his job to know. No other reason but that.
The excuses don't work so well when the tone of the letters changes. I don't understand, one missive begins, and for Altair to admit that is so unnerving Malik checks the ink for poison. The connections between the men I've killed, I know it goes deeper than what Al Mualim has said. Templars and Saracens, corrupt men and cowards…but what is their goal? I know it is there but I cannot see it yet. I don't have your sharp eye for plotting, I suppose.
Malik doesn't respond to this letter because he doesn't respond to any of them, after that one. But he keeps them, mulls over what they say. He hardly recognizes the tone of this Altair, and so it is hard to maintain the old familiar disgust. Harder, also, when he doesn't have to see the Son of None in person, when he can imagine his hurt and shame walk somewhere else, fester in some other city. He reads the letters and can almost forget who sends them.
At least until Robert arrives.
He thinks it is a joke at first, the murmur that reaches his bureau – a foul joke. De Sablé, that ogre, here? The Brotherhood has seen and heard little of him since his failed siege of Masyaf almost three years ago. Malik figured the man had been pulled back into the ranks by the English king as punishment, and as the latest round of fighting heated up elsewhere. But he hadn't gone out of his way to find his brother's true killer. Al Mualim would never let him go after the man, to leave his post; to know Robert lived somewhere just out of reach would have drowned Malik once and for all in the sludge he is only now starting to think he might survive. Better not to think of it. Better not to know.
But when all Jerusalem's spies, and all the power brokers, and every person in the city Malik trusts half worth a damn, begin to say the same thing, he is forced to consider it. De Sablé, in his city, under his sky. In the same place as Kadar's long-lost bones.
Another letter comes from Altair: Malik, I have heard…Al Mualim has sent me to finish what… The writing is messier than usual, and much has been crossed out. If the Templar general is in Jerusalem then so am I. I'll We'll kill him together, Brother.
"Brother," Malik echoes when he reads it. Is that what they are?
He waits until that night of bad dreams and cool breezes when Raed confirms the worst. Then he dresses himself in white robes and black, sprinkles himself in knives, leaves behind the broadsword that gives him trouble for the short sword he can hold in one hand. Will he kill Robert himself? Tonight? Will he have that bitter good fortune after everything he's suffered?
Raed leads him over rooftops, directing the path with a flick of his head or a blink of the eye, choosing a route that will require less steep climbing of Malik. But their speed slows as they near the mansion Robert has hidden himself in. There are archers at all angles, the surrounding streets have been cleared of stands and pedestrians, and even the roof gardens have been taken down.
The assassins crouch behind the crenellations of a nearby building. Malik shakes his head. "It doesn't make sense," he says. "This is a Saracen-held city but those are city guards below. Why would they allow one of the top generals in their enemy's army past the city walls? Why would they protect him?"
"Bewitched," Raed suggests. "He's definitely in there. Do we go in?"
Malik fists his hand against the dirty rooftop. His other hand, the one he doesn't have, pulses with ghost pain as if to remind him why he's here. He wants to go down there, sniff out the dog, rip him to pieces, leave him in shreds throughout the city.
"Dai?"
"No," he gets out through a tight jaw. "It's too heavily guarded. I think we could find Robert but not without alerting every guard he has. It'd be a bloodbath, it could draw the whole bureau into something we're not ready for. And we still don't know why he's here."
And…Malik thinks of his long history with the Templar, remembers the lash, remembers the fear. The hot ethereal stink of Solomon's Temple. If he is being honest, he isn't sure he could defeat de Sablé. He isn't sure his blade could parry Robert's.
"Then what do we do, Lord?"
"We wait. We learn more about his plans, his convoy. We match a name to every face and a location to every moment. And Altair is coming back," he adds. "We'll wait for him."
Raed says wryly, "Bad timing to have to deal with him on top of everything."
"Mm," says Malik. "Yes. We will have to make do."
Just don't be mad, Kadar says.
-i-
He must prepare so he prepares. He must send out spies and track down informers, so he sends and tracks. He must send back to Masyaf the journeymen and informers' families, Raed's included, in advance of what may be a bloody fight, so he sends and sends and sends until everyone is alone. He must…he must…
He must see for himself, truly, so he dresses in obscure fashion and treads the muddy streets to that mansion that hosts the devil. Three nights he does this, wrapped in old robes and a cloak to cover his face, before the Templar comes out on the fourth, accompanied by a retinue a dozen strong. Malik dips his hands into a public fountain, pretends to be washing, until the last soldier's gone past. Then he sinks further into the cloak and follows them into the depths of the limestone city.
Time has aged Robert some, even with a helm to hide his face. His shoulders seem more slanted. His hand never leaves his hip and the hilt of his sword, his eyes behind the mask never stop darting from face to face. A beggar woman, seeing the richness of his cloth and boots before she sees his bodyguard, runs up to him: "Please, please, don't leave. You don't understand, I have nothing." He brushes her away roughly, with a hand squeezing her thin shoulder, a move Malik recognizes from a courtyard away as checking for hidden knives. Suspicious man, on enemy territory. But one who wears his regalia outright, even so.
It means a bribe – it means more than a mere bribe – that he can walk here so openly. Jerusalem's highest powers have allowed this for some reason. They have allowed this despite Malik, who they know of if not by face by assassin design. They know the Dai of Jerusalem won't suffer these men, this man, on his land but still they look away. Malik drifts after his enemy, just another body in the evening bustle, tasting weakness and execration like rotten meat caught between his teeth.
He could kill Robert, right here. Even if he died fending off the rest of them, he could take this man with him to hell. Finally become the shepherd killing the wolf. For so long it's stalked his flock and what has he ever done to stop it?
Malik stops at a corner, watches the crowd swallow his target. He knows if he used his eagle's sight now it would all be red: Robert, his men, the random passersby blocking him from them, the water vendor and the carpet seller with his stall full of hanging rugs and the beggar woman still darting here and there in grim focus. All of them, everyone, the entire wretched wasted world. Every single one he hates.
Which is why he can't kill the Templar. Which is why he isn't worthy.
Do not compromise the Brotherhood. They must learn it young because it is so hard to master.
On his way back to the bureau, Malik remembers Altair. Talk about hate – although that one feels fuzzier now, frayed, compared to the fresh new bile of de Sablé in his city. Kadar's murderer and Kadar's betrayer…he cannot hate both of them the same way, unless they are the same person. He thought he could, once.
Malik swore at the Son of None once that they were nothing alike, but maybe it isn't true. The entirety of Jerusalem bathed in red, the urge to shrug off all he's been taught and sworn to uphold in order to commit real, unforgiveable slaughter…no, maybe he is no better. Maybe no man is any higher than a worm.
And then Altair arrives.
-i-
"Safety and peace, Altair."
"Upon you as well, Brother."
"It seems fate has a funny way with things," Malik says, tartly. Funny is barely the tip of what this is.
"So it's true, then," Altair says. "Robert de Sablé is in Jerusalem."
Malik leans over his counter. He's cleared it of all books and maps and candles, nothing left to get in the way. "I've seen his Knights myself," he says, leaving out the other night.
Altair spits, "Only misfortune follows that man. If he's here it's because he intends ill. I won't give him the chance to act."
Malik is mildly surprised to hear the rancor blot out the usual smugness in his tone. He has spent these years thinking that only he bore a grudge; certainly Al Mualim lost no sleep after Kadar died! Rauf and the others were sad, sure, they were regretful to lose a Brother and a friend, but they were not the elder brother and they had not failed to keep a promise. That was Malik's burden alone. And yet here before him now is Altair, drumming his fingers against the countertop, all pent-up anger and retribution, looking at Malik with narrowed eyes as if he thinks he understands the grief. As if he shares it.
How strange. Altair didn't even like Kadar.
Malik sees it again, the city bathed red, and frowns.
"Do not let vengeance cloud your thoughts, Brother," he says, trying for a lecturing tone rather than one of genuine concern. "We both know no good can come of that."
Last time he hinted at Solomon's Temple Altair turned purple. But this time…this time he only winces and looks down. "I have not forgotten. You have nothing to fear," he says, almost kindly. What has happened to him out on the road? "I do not seek revenge but knowledge."
What has happened to Malik, that he accepts it?
"Truly you are not the man I once knew," he says to himself, marveling. Altair is offering him caution and respect – respect for his worry and his wounds, not just his sword-skill and kill count and cock. "Of course, whatever man you are now I'm certain I won't like him," he adds, and is horrified to hear it come out as a joke. Horrified to see Altair suppress a little smile.
"My work has taught me many things, revealed secrets to me," the almost-and-always Master Assassin says. "But there are still pieces of this puzzle I do not possess."
"What do you mean?"
"All the men I've laid to rest have worked together, united by this man. Robert has designs upon this land, this much I know for certain. But how and why, when and where…these things remain out of reach."
"I don't understand."
"Think of it. Master Al Mualim has had me kill specific men to regain my rank, right?" Altair looks down at himself. He has almost all his old weapons back; his time in exile is coming to an end, unlike Malik, who will never leave Jerusalem, never have more than this. As he asked for. As he thought he wanted. "I assumed at first they would be Templars or else minor warlords and the like. I…I assumed too much, about too many things. I see that now."
"Mm…and were your assumptions wrong, then?"
"Yes. They weren't all Templars. At least, they didn't all wear the cross of the Knights Templar. Some of them were Crusaders, some Saracens…"
"Yes. Jerusalem's regent, of course. You targeted men who threatened the peace in one way or another. Why is that so strange?"
"Because it wasn't just that they were threatening the peace. I spoke to each man as he died. They were linked. Working for a common cause."
"Crusaders and Saracens, working together?" Malik asks, incredulous. "Nothing I've seen suggests that either side would allow for it." Although, Robert does walk the Saracen streets unmolested…
Altair says, "They are none of these things, but something else. Templars."
"The Templars are a part of the Crusader army. They target the Order because we stand between them and religious domination. We've known that since we were kids."
"Part of the Crusader army? Or so they'd like King Richard to believe. No. Their only allegiance is to Robert de Sablé and some mad idea that they will stop the war."
"Stop the war? We want to stop the war. The Templars want to spread it!"
"I tell you, Malik, these men spoke to me of peace and light and…" Altair brings both hands up to the counter and spreads them flat. "I know it sounds mad," he says. "I know you have no reason to believe me. You are a spymaster and information-gatherer the equal of none save the Grandmaster. I know. But I know what I heard, also. With your help I can unravel it, Dai."
"You spin a strange tale," Malik says.
"You have no idea, Malik." Altair gives a sharp nod. "Tell me where he's been seen. I should be after him before he slips away."
Malik pauses a moment, to think but also to absorb what's been said. "Three places I can say for certain: West of here near the tallest tower and the hospital, and to the southwest, at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. See what you can learn. I will do the same."
(He cannot hate them both…it is too much, he is too tired…and what does it mean if all this time Altair has not forgotten? If Kadar and the cobweb damp of Solomon's Temple haunt him too?)
"I'll be quick as I can," Altair promises.
"Easier when you were an asshole," Malik mumbles.
"What did you say?"
Malik sighs, running a hand over the scratch of trimmed beard. He has gotten better these days about grooming, about sleeping, about remembering to eat, he has regained some of the weight he'd lost and maybe that's why Altair watches him with a fresh hunger, almost relieved. But Malik hasn't done any of this for him.
"Stay safe, my friend," he says.
-i-
Malik is walking back from the market after several hours of working crowds as only he can when the attack comes. Amazing how much can be learned just by chatting with merchants and strategic cups of tea, saying in a friendly manner nothing of any importance while the other babbles without realizing he's being pumped for more. And amazing what secrets a scholar will spill, if once you saved them from the soldiers.
It's a soldier who jumps Malik near the market, though quite a clumsy, twitchy one. He batters at Malik with a big dull cleaver of a blade, more than Malik feels comfortable batting away directly with one hand. He steps quick and light, scattering loose stone as people around him scream and run. The sword misses his shoulder for the stall behind him, cracking the supports in two. Another strike and the whole thing crashes down in a dusty clatter of broken pottery and wood. Malik grabs a decent-sized hunk of wood just in time to fend off the next blow; the makeshift shield cracks down the middle and his wrist takes the brunt of it. Wincing he leaps the stall's ruins to give himself some space, while its owner wails and pulls at his beard.
The guard trips over his own feet coming after, and then trips again – but it's because he's being grabbed from behind, Malik sees. Another assassin? No, a burly bearded man in a black tunic whom he's never met before. Well, Malik will take the help. He throws the first two knives into the enemy's wrists, to take the big sword away and keep the vigilante safe. The next knife hits the guard's eye. The burly man lets go and steps back as the guard shrieks, and in two big footfalls Malik is there to seize him by the collar and pull him close.
"Tell your master the man in the Temple is coming for him," he says, wraith-worded. Then he turns the guard around and throws him head-first into another stall, bringing that one down too. The rubble gives one big heave and then lies still.
Malik nods at his helper, who nods back. "You helped my sister when she was being harassed by these thugs," the man says, and falls back into the crowd. Useful, Malik thinks, but I am no maiden fighting for her honor. That was targeted.
He brushes off his robes, winded. His wrist hurts like hell when he shakes it out. It's only then that his neck prickles and he frowns. "Come to gawk?" he asks without turning around.
"No. Come to help," Altair says, crouched like an eagle on a balcony railing with both eyes fixed on the rubble's unconscious guest. "I heard the commotion."
"Well, I still live. They're getting nervous and they're getting silly, to attack me one on one. Sorry to disappoint you."
"That you live," Altair says, "is not a disappointment."
Malik finally turns to stare up at him. "I've hated you for years," he says. "I've cursed you. I've mocked you. Believe me when I say I've wished for your death many times." Altair shifts, hidden within his cowl, saying nothing. Malik glares. "What the fuck do I have to do to get you to hate me back?"
"Is that what you want? For me to hate you?"
"It would be fair!"
"That is not an answer."
Malik snaps, "Maybe you aren't entitled to my answer. Maybe you don't get to have everything whenever you demand it."
Then, a surprise: Altair reaches up and pulls his cowl down. Here, in public, with a crowd still gathered to gawk at the soldier and the quarreling assassins.
"You're right," he says. "Maybe I don't."
Malik searches his eyes, looking for jest or irritation, but can only see honest apology and the reminder that it has never been easy to look Altair in the eye – and he is out of practice. For more than two years now he has only glared at the man's mouth or spit on his shoes.
"…This isn't the place for this," he mutters at last. "We should leave before more guards come."
Altair nods, drops down and falls into step beside him. It is almost years ago, it is almost Masyaf, it is almost two Brother-lover-friends returned home in satisfied success from a mission they shared.
"You must have found something good to rattle them into such a stupid assault," Altair says.
"Maybe. I'm not sure yet." Malik rifles through what he's learned – rumor of funeral, of vigilante justice, of revenge – as they cross the narrow, crowded streets and pass into the wide courtyard in front of the bureau. Malik stops to wash his bloody hands in the fountain, Altair waiting a step behind. When they climb the ladder to the roof Altair offers no help, nor impatience as Malik hauls himself up one-handedly. When they jump down through the roof grate they land almost in the same motion, the same space, crouched low so that their coattails brush together.
"He's still here, that much I know," Malik says as they enter the main room. "I've heard talk of a funeral…"
"And I've heard talk of Majd Addin. But they must have buried that corpse long ago."
"They did, but at the time my men reported no ceremony. It was a hushed-up affair. Maybe no longer."
"Would Robert attend his funeral?"
"Who knows what that dog is plotting? Where he's hiding or what he plans…these remain mysteries to me."
"I'll continue my search, then."
"Fortune favor you."
"Oh, Malik, before I go: an amusing story for you."
Malik pauses at his counter, wary. "What you find amusing I find troublesome."
"I ran into one of your men," Altair continues as if he hadn't heard. "He was cowering in some corner, said he'd been shadowing guards on your order and twisted his ankle in the process."
"Hmph," says Malik. "So what? Who needs four limbs to do a job?"
The silence that follows is incredibly awkward.
"…I killed the guards for him," Altair offers. "He's the one that mentioned Majd and suggested the city scholars might know more."
"Did you get this supposed assassin's name? Just because he failed his exceedingly easy task did not give him the right to hand it to you."
"I don't know. Hamid, Hakim, something."
"Excellent info-gathering, Brother, I thank you."
"He was an ass. Seemed to find the idea of my talking with scholars entertaining."
"Everyone in the Levant knows how badly you deal with people. So the moral of this story is I have an inept assassin working under me and you don't know how to hold a basic conversation. Was this supposed to be a funny tale, did you say?"
Altair huffs. "It's funny because he was terrified. Not of being found by the guards. Of you. 'Altair, you must help me, Malik would never have forgiven me!'" He gives Malik an approving little grin. "Quite the bureau you run."
Malik shrugs. "I have no patience for assassins who whine over twisted ankles. But if he was so rude to you, why did you bother to help?"
"He was a Brother," Altair says. "It's the Creed."
"Oh," says Malik. "Yes. The Creed." And whatever levity they might have shared, it ends here. A good thing, that Altair is learning what it means to be in a Brotherhood. A bad thing, that it took him so long.
The Dai studies a bruise newly purpling on his wrist. Might have snapped something in that fight after all. Altair sees him looking. "Are you alright?"
"It will heal, or it won't," Malik says. "Be about your business, Brother."
"When this is over…" Altair begins, but Malik shakes his head.
"Don't assume it will ever be over," he says.
Once Altair would have angered at that, no doubt. But today he only nods.
-i-
Two days later Altair comes back to the bureau and barges in despite the handful of journeymen waiting for Malik's orders.
"That assassin, Hakim or whoever—"
"Hassam, Altair. How can you be this bad at names?"
"Whoever. I saw him just now and he was—"
"Oh, nothing serious, just running laps. After what you said I thought his training could use some refreshing, that's all."
"Yes, but Malik, he was…"
"Wasn't skimping, was he? I saw his so-called twisted ankle, and I wasn't impressed." He sighs noisily, shaking his head at the next man in line. "If an assassin can't run a few simple laps then I just don't know..."
Altair coughs. "Malik."
"Yes? What did you want?"
"Exactly what is Hamid running laps around?"
"Oh," Malik shrugs. "The city."
The young assassin before him says: "Um. Sorry, Dai, sorry to interrupt, but what…part…of the city?"
"The city. Outer walls, inner walls, the rest of the walls. Altair, really, I'm busy. Did you need something?"
"Not a thing," says Altair.
"Great." Malik smiles at the journeyman. "Ready for your assignment?"
-i-
Because Altair can do nothing quietly, he brings a whole battle to Malik's bureau the day he earns his mission. Malik is in his room, supposedly reading a letter from the Damascus rafik on the difficulty of contacting Al Mualim, but really staring into space, distracted, unsettled. It is a cool day, a cloudy day, it is…it is all wrong. All of it. Yesterday Altair attempted to cook a stew and he burned it and Malik laughed. He laughed. Sent a novice out for bread and meat, ate his meal together with the Son of None, discussed fighting tactics as if he were hale and whole and as if this all were normal.
How can it be normal? How can he dare?
"Shifty little schemer," Malik mutters, "trying to win back my trust."
But is Altair the schemer, when Altair has always been honest that he will take whatever Malik has to give? No. The Dai is the one who should know better. Robert de fucking Sablé sits in his city – in Kadar's city! – and the man who left the A-Sayf brothers to rot acts as though he will bring justice and as though that justice is all Malik needs to forgive him, to fall back into his arms.
Malik shouts, "I won't forgive you! I can't! Goddamn it, how can you…"
He crumples the letter. He kicks over his table. He takes a lit candle in a jar and dashes both against the stone floor. Sits down with his feet in the mess and his back to the wall, heedless of the broken glass.
"Kadar," he says, his voice a whisper and a prayer and a groan. "Please. I can't…"
Someone says his name, and his heart gets stuck mid-beat. "Kadar?" he whispers.
When the yell comes it doesn't sound quite the same. But he knows it for what it is this time. Fool, he chides himself. Of course. Assassins are fighting and his men are shutting the roof grate. Of course that's all it is.
When he goes out into the antechamber he sees that he is right. Raed and some journeymen are all gathered around, focused upwards. The grate's been closed for the bureau's protection, as is the protocol, and upon it Altair fights and dances.
"Three, four…five men, against him," Raed notes. "And some archers, we saw their arrows hitting the roof."
"Maybe someone should help?" a journeyman says. "Five men plus archers is a lot for one man."
"Not yet," Malik says absently. "Not for him." And he knows Raed is studying him now, more than the fight above.
That would have bothered him a year ago. He would be cursing and wishing for the arrows to find their mark a year ago. But now he—
Now he watches Altair feint and parry, with all the mastery of gods. See the way his feet slide against the grating, the way his body holds its balance. See the grace and beauty with which he shoves one man off the roof and cuts another across the throat. See the way he leaps to the roof garden on the building across the way, as if all the space in between was nothing, as if he never doubted he could fly. The way the wind bears him, the way the ground holds him, the way the city welcomes him. Malik's city. See how Altair moves across it as though he knows it just as well.
The Master Assassin – for truly that is what he is – grabs the roof of the garden structure and with the sheer strength of his upper arms lifts up, swings and kicks an approaching guard in the chest with both feet. The man falls backwards and off the building. "That's three," says the journeyman. "Oh-! No, it's four," because Altair has whipped a guard around by the arm and let the man take the archer's arrow. He rolls away from the body and leaps across the roof in one sinuous motion as he advances on the last of the pursuers.
But wait-! Another shadow just behind the roof garden. Another soldier and Altair doesn't see and Altair could die here and Malik could let him die and all his men are watching him and no one dares take a breath and Malik has not forgiven and Malik is tired of grudges and Malik…!
"Behind you, idiot!" he says.
Altair hears and ducks a sword strike that only just misses his scalp, though it rips the cowl off. He snaps that man's neck like it's nothing, which is enough to send the remaining guard and archers scampering away like cowed mongrels. Then the Son of None stands at the edge of the building, staring through the grate and into the bureau, the wind in his hair, staring at Malik.
"Open the grate," Malik rasps. Louder, when no one moves: "I said open it! Let him in."
He comes in slowly, shoulder first, as if he expects a trap. Malik waves him into the main room and orders everyone else away.
"Well," he says, when they are gone and it is quiet.
"Well," says Altair.
"That was some fight you brought to my doorstep."
"I'll clean the blood up if you'd like. Once I'm done spilling it."
"That will take too long. Hm." Malik goes back to the safety – yes, how pathetic, back to the safety behind his counter. He's turned into just another old greybeard rooted in dark dust, while Altair is out in the sun taking back his birthright by force.
When the silence becomes too heavy, Malik says: "You've the scent of success about you, Brother."
"I've learned much about our enemy."
"Share your knowledge, then. Let us see what can be done with it."
"It is as you suspected. Robert and his Templars walk the city because they've come to pay their respects to Majd Addin. They'll attend his funeral, which means so will I."
"What is this that the Templars would attend his funeral? A Saracen Muslim funeral?"
"I've yet to divine their true intentions, though I'll have a confession in time," Altair says. "The citizens themselves are divided: many call for their lives, but others insist that they are here to parley. To make peace."
"Peace?"
"I've told you," he says, a touch impatient. "The others I've slain have said as much to me."
"That would make them our allies," Malik says, sarcastic. "Our brothers! And yet we kill them. I'm not sure you've thought this through."
Altair shakes his head. "Make no mistake, we are nothing like these men. Thought their goal sounds noble, the means by which they'd achieve it are not." He hesitates. "…At least, that's what Master Al Mualim told me."
"Al Mualim, mm? He's told me nothing at all in recent times, nor the other city leaders. I begin to wonder…"
"Wonder what?"
"Nothing. Forget it. So what is your plan?"
"I'll attend the funeral and confront Robert."
"What, no fanfare? No great righteous plans to earn yourself more credit? I know how you like your crowds."
"No," says Altair. "A simple death for a worthless man."
"The sooner the better," Malik says. Again, the silence. He busies himself looking for a feather. "I'm glad you told me Robert's location. Now comes the hard part. You should hasten to the funeral before it's too late."
Altair stares at the feather. He doesn't take it. After a moment, Malik reaches over and places it in the other man's pocket himself. "Fortune favor your blade, Brother," he says.
His hand brushes Altair's hip when he withdraws it. They both start like they've been stabbed.
"Well," says Malik, and coughs, and tries again. "Go on then. Do your work and I'll do mine, and…"
"Malik." Altair lifts his cowl back over his head, something defensive in the move. "Before I go, there is something I should say."
"Be out with it."
"I've…I've been a fool."
He raises an eyebrow. "Normally I would make no argument, but what is this? What are you talking about?"
"All this time…" Altair says, almost in wonder. "I never told you I was sorry. Too damn proud. You lost your arm because of me. You lost Kadar."
Malik looks down. Hears his brother's easy laugh above the rushed beat of his pulse.
"You have every right to be angry."
Kadar.
Now don't be angry, Akhi.
I understand now, Malik. He'll come back. For you.
"I was cruel and it was my fault," says Altair. "I – I have never respected anyone as I have respected you, and I hurt you. Took Kadar from you. And I'm sorry."
"I do not accept your apology."
Altair hunches his shoulders. "I understand."
"No. You don't," says Malik, who hears himself talking as if from several rooms away. "I do not accept your apology because you are not the same man who went with me into Solomon's Temple. And so you have nothing to apologize for."
"Malik—"
"Perhaps if I had not been so envious of you, I would not have been so careless myself. I'm just as much to blame."
"Don't say such things."
"We are one. As we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeats. In this way we grow closer, we grow stronger, we…" He has to stop. There is a pain in his throat like a lump of burning coal.
"Thank you, Malik," Altair says.
Malik points in the direction of the antechamber. "Rest if you need to, Altair, that you might be ready for what lies ahead. You know, I wonder what Al Mualim has planned for you once Robert is dead. You'll have your full rank back. You'll have everything you wanted."
"What I wanted," Altair says, "was your forgiveness. Your mercy."
"Oh," laughs Malik, "that fickle thing. Anyway, I suppose we'll have to deal with the Templar's remaining forces. Only time will tell. But this much is certain: the Holy Land is a better place because of you."
"Malik?"
"Go on now, Brother. I have things to do here."
When Altair leaves Malik presses his hand to his throat and digs his nails into the flesh, trying to force down air. Is he a coward? Is he a traitor? Why does he hear Kadar's delighted giggle in his ear?
"I can't," he says. "I can't hate him anymore. I can't blame him anymore."
But that too is a danger. For now there is only one man left to blame.
-i-
The hush of Jerusalem at night is like no other. You can see, thinks Malik, why this city is a holy place. God is in the heat-baked brick, in the browning hills, in the flush of stars above, in the ancient ways. His father would say God is in everything. It would be so nice to believe.
But he is not a believer, and the spectral quiet is not something he trusts.
He sits cross-legged on the bureau's stone rooftop, leaning back on his hand, looking up. There's hardly a breeze tonight. In preparation for Majd Addin's funeral (tomorrow, so many months after the actual death that it can only be a plot) he's sent most of the bureau's assassins elsewhere. Raed and most of the higher ranks are already in place about the city, eyes on the next day's bloodbath. The building is empty and Malik is alone.
Thinks he is alone.
Just as he is sighing that he can't see Solomon's Temple from here – a good thing? a bad? – there are soft footsteps behind him. He grits his teeth. Only one person could get this close without his noticing.
"You remember that time on the tower ledge," Altair says, squatting down beside him. "When I said I'd jump and you told me I would die."
"Probably you wouldn't have," Malik says. "You always seem to come out of things just fine."
Altair sits fully and knots his hands together. "Some things are easier to survive than others."
"No need to tell me."
"No."
"I wonder if that Templar has any idea what we intend for him. It should be interesting to see how he reacts to your arrival."
"Malik…"
"As I said before, whatever tomorrow's outcome it's a good thing you're doing for this place. For its ghosts-…"
"Malik." Altair puts a hand on his shoulder. He stiffens instinctively, because it's been so long since he's been touched by, well, anyone. "What I do tomorrow I don't do for this city or Al Mualim or even Kadar. Only for you."
He forces a smile. "Still on your quest for penance? I told you already, there's no need for…"
"You're wrong. Of course there's a need. For as long as you hate me there's a need."
"Oh, I don't hate you."
"You do."
"I already said I forgive you, and I meant it."
"Yes. But deep inside you still—"
"You don't know anything about me deep inside," Malik snaps. "How predictable your bullshit is! You think you know everything! How I think and what I want! You don't know a thing."
"I want to," Altair says, voice low.
"And I want to be alone right now but clearly what we want is not…"
"Alone, what, so you can sulk some more? You haven't had enough of that already?"
Malik shouts, "If I want to sulk for the rest of my goddamn life it's none of your concern! Don't think I've spent my time here thinking of you."
"What good does it do? What does it bring you?"
"It brings me my brother, you son of a bitch."
"Kadar," Altair says, "is the last person in the entire world who would want you to sulk."
"That doesn't matter either, seeing as how he's dead. You do nothing but push, push, push, Altair, you always think you know best. Well, some of us aren't as strong as you. Some of us are tired."
Altair hackles. "You think you're the only one who's suffered these last years?" he demands. "The only one with regrets? I have traveled from city to city and I have killed for men who hate me more than they hate my targets and I – I have never been able to find it."
"Find what?"
"Find you. Damn it." He picks up a loose piece of roof tile and hurls it against the side of a taller building next door. "I came to Jerusalem and you looked at me with such loathing and I thought that at least you hadn't forgotten. At least you knew who I was. But it wasn't enough. To hurt you so completely and not know how to solve it. To think that in ten years, thirty years you would still be here. You know how silent the desert gets at night. Silent winds but it brings voices. Never yours. Kadar's—"
"Altair, stop."
"I would have gone to the darkest pit in hell to bring him back," Altair says. "To save him, and you. I should have done more at Solomon's Temple, but I couldn't believe you'd really die. Either of you. I always got everything I wanted up until then, because I was strong. Too strong to realize how vulnerable it all was. I should have done more. I hear it in the desert every night."
"For fuck's sake." Malik drags his hand across his face. "I forgave you, I meant it, we could have left it there. We could have settled this as friends, Altair. Why do you have to push?"
The Son of None leans towards him. "Admit it, Malik," he says. "You and I have never been the type to settle."
Malik starts to say something. Altair kisses him first.
Altair's lips are on him and his tongue and his hands and some part of Malik that he has been guarding, coating carefully in amber each day, some part of him that he thought hardened beyond repair wilts and dies and comes alive and oh god. Oh, god. Altair kisses the side of his neck, kisses his collarbone, kisses his shoulder. Pulls his robes down to expose his aborted arm and kisses the stump of that too.
Something in Malik is screaming, and something in him is overcome with joy, and he's so hard it actually hurts. And Altair is still kissing him. And he is kissing back.
"You'll forgive me," Altair is muttering, over and over, as he works his way down. "You'll forgive me. You must." He gets Malik's leggings off, the Dai lifting his hips to help, and takes Malik in hand and then in mouth. His mumbles cut off to a steady hum. Grit digs into Malik's hand as he braces himself, it's so good, it's still so good, the feel of Altair's tight throat, the sight of him so very focused with his eyes closed and his cowl askew and his hair a tangled mess.
Malik doesn't scream when he comes and Altair doesn't make a face when he swallows. In all th time since they last fucked these are the only changes.
Malik pushes Altair off, adjusts himself, stands up, walks away. "Shit," he says sobbingly. "Shit." And of course Altair comes after him and grabs his arm and of course Malik yanks away.
"You're right," he spits. "I do hate you, I think I always will, and do you know why? Because you act like nothing is wrong, when everything is wrong inside me, Altair, everything. Yet you keep coming after this, this failure, this cripple…" He jabs his kept hand towards his lost one. Altair is watching him, mouth open slightly and still glistening in the corners with Malik's orgasm.
"You, hah, you always have been right, actually," says Malik. "About Kadar. I should never have had a brother. When I couldn't even keep one measly promise…! And look! Now there is no brother and I've no one left at all and I'm barely an assassin, you were right about that too – the choice was Master Assassin or shit and sewage and I have sipped so much sewage in Jerusalem that I forget how water tastes. I should have been like you all along. You were right."
"No. I wasn't."
"Of course you were, Brother! How much smarter you've always been! If I had only left Kadar with some peasant somewhere and left my heart with him too, put the Creed there instead until it – I – until we were all just words and murder…fuck! Why don't you just leave? Why don't you just leave me here?"
(He is, a part of him, aware that he is shouting, aware that he must sound deranged. He is aware that his hand is fisted in Altair's tunic, and Altair has let this happen.)
"All along I said I blamed you for Kadar's dying and I was wrong," he says. "I lied. Not you, not Robert. Me. Only me. But as long as I could hate you – as long as I could have that, Altair, that one last little thing, then I could get through the day in this body without wanting to rip out my own eyes. But now I don't even have that. You've taken it! Do you understand?"
And then he says it. Says it and it will follow them both from place to place, victory to victory and defeat to defeat. A haunting. The Apple is only following precedent when it brings Kadar back.
"If I hated the sight of you it was because I loved you and I always will," Malik tells Altair in a torn, muddy tone. "I need you even with what you've done and I am worthless for needing you, and I know that, and it doesn't matter. It isn't enough to stop. Nothing is. You want my forgiveness? It's yours. You want my affection? You have it. You want me to debase myself? Fine, I will. Only let me rest a bit, from all of this. Altair, it would be better for both of us if you killed me here."
Altair puts both his hands on Malik's to loosen it from his shirtfront. Without changing his grip he lowers them both back to the floor, so that Malik must tug and shift and struggle and ultimately lean against him. Who knew the Master Assassin could be so tender?
"I don't want you to debase yourself," he says.
Malik scowls. "Of course you don't." But already he is calmer.
They sit like that for some time. Malik feels…tired. It isn't good, it isn't bad. It just is.
"If you need to blame me, I understand," Altair remarks. "You should blame me."
"You say that now, novice. But I think…I think I will forget sometimes, this forgiveness. I think I will be very cruel to you."
"Be as cruel as you'd like. I can bear it."
"…That is in no way a normal or healthy response to any of this."
Altair shrugs. Malik feels the rise and fall of his shoulder against his cheek. "It's the only response you'll get. Only…"
"Only what?"
"Only don't leave again. You're mine. I'm yours. I don't know how else to be."
Malik gives a wet scoff. "The great Master Assassin doesn't know how to live without the Dai of Jerusalem calling him names? The almighty Altair without whom the Brotherhood would fall?"
"I don't think I am so mighty," Altair says, thoughtful. "Especially these last months, coming here, making sense of it all…I think there is only the Creed to trust in. I've ignored it long enough. And you are the one who's taught me what it is the Creed really means: protect your Brothers. That's all. And if that's all, then I am not so strong, but I'm strong enough to carry both our burdens."
"Is that so." Malik straightens up to run a critical eye over that familiar, handsome face. "You do remember I, ah, called you a half-breed once. Your parents' bastard. Said something about you dying in the gutter…"
"Is this an apology or a retread?" Altair grumbles.
"Apology, but only because it's been three goddamn years since I've had anyone suck me off and I think you've been practicing."
"Please," says Altair. "I've no need to practice. I've always been the best."
"Do you know, novice, that if you talked ninety-nine percent less you might be halfway tolerable?" Malik turns his gaze back to the city, jagged skyline of minaret and tower. "Altair, tomorrow – be about your mission well," he says. "Every moment Robert lives is a moment longer than he deserves."
"I will kill him," Altair says. Malik believes.
-i-
Exactly what happens the day of Majd Addin's falsehood funeral Malik learns only after it's occurred. The Templar gathering, the empty coffin, the woman in Robert's suit of armor – he has time to digest it later, so that when first he is introduced to Maria Thorpe he is able to swallow that she worked willingly for such a killer and still sound halfway polite. It helps that by then de Sablé is dead. It helps that by then Altair has been proven right.
"It was a trap!" barks the Son of None the day his assassination fails. He storms into Malik's bureau. Malik has just finished raging with and at Raed and so has less rage to spare for Altair.
"I heard the funeral turned to chaos, what happened?"
"Robert de Sablé was never here. He sent another in his stead. He was expecting me."
"How did my spies not see this? You must go to Al Mualim."
Altair grinds out, "There's no time. She's told me where he's gone, what he plans – if I return to Masyaf he might succeed. And then I fear we'll be destroyed."
"Between your targets and mine we have killed most of his men. He cannot hope to mount a proper attack – wait. Did you say she?"
Altair takes to pacing in front of the counter. "Yes, it was a woman. Strange, I know, but that's for another time. For now we must focus on Robert. We may have thinned his ranks but the man is clever. He goes to plead his case to Richard and Saladin in Arsuf, to unite them against a common enemy. Against us."
Malik leans back against his bookshelves, tries to think beyond the clear pure rush of still alive still alive that bastard still alive! "Surely you are mistaken," he tries. "This makes no sense. These two men would never—"
"Oh, but they would. And we have ourselves to blame." Altair sneers. "Have myself to blame. The men I've killed, men on both sides of the conflict, men important to both leaders. Robert's plan may be ambitious, but it makes sense, and it could work. How strange that Al Mualim never considered this!"
"Look, Altair. Things have changed. You are not the grand Master Assassin who can go off on his own tangent whenever his gut tells him. You must return to Masyaf."
"If I do, by the time I track the old man down, Robert will have escaped. Do you want him to get away?"
"It doesn't matter what – we cannot act without our Master's permission! You know that! You told me you knew that!"
"This is different, Malik, listen to me. It makes sense…"
"Like going after Faraj's killers made sense?" he snarls, last night's frenzy and folly flashing before him yet again. "Like Solomon's Temple made sense?"
A harsh swallow, gravel down his throat, Altair mute before him, defenseless and somehow the worse for it in Malik's eyes. "To compromise the Brotherhood…" he says. "I thought…I thought you had learned this."
But then Altair slams his hands upon the counter, leans in so close Malik's instinct is to go for a knife.
"Stop hiding behind words, Malik! You wield the Creed and its tenants like some shield. He's keeping things from us, important things."
"You accuse our Master of betrayal?"
"As if you haven't been hinting at the same all along. You were the one who told me we could never know anything, only suspect. Well, I suspect this business with the Templars goes deeper. When I'm done with Robert I will ride for Masyaf that we may have answers. But perhaps you can go now. This is Robert de Sablé, Malik. Don't you also want him dead?"
"I cannot leave the city," Malik says, faint.
"Then walk amongst its people. Seek out those who served the ones I slew. Learn what you can. You call yourself perceptive – you are perceptive, more than I. Perhaps you'll see something I could not."
"I don't know. I, I must think on this."
"Do as you must, my friend," Altair says, voice gone suddenly gentle. "But it's time I ride for Arsuf. Every moment I delay, our enemy gets one step ahead of me."
Malik could yell at him. Could, as the bureau leader and technical higher rank, order him to stop. Could send a messenger, even, to warn Al Mualim.
"Be careful, Altair," he says.
"I will be. I promise." Altair pauses in the doorway. Looks back at Malik, with yesterday's words still showing on his face. Reaches a slow hand back behind his head and lowers his cowl to his shoulders so Malik can clearly see his eyes. Will Malik ever understand this man? Will Malik ever come to terms with him? "Trust me on this, Malik," says the only person he has ever loathed and loved in equal measure, all at once and all the time, with impossible, awesome force. "Please."
Trust him? Again?
("Safety and peace, Malik."
"Your presence will deliver us both.")
What else can he do?