Assassin’s Creed®

by Oliver Bowden

  The Ghost’s palms were sweaty. He gulped and returned to a balmy room in Amritsar, tasting the fear afresh, seeing the blade in Dani’s screaming mouth, blood and steel shimmering in the moonlight.

  He had to summon all his strength to say the next words, and it hurt to hear himself say them but say them he did. ‘If it is a test, then I am sure to fail.’

  Ethan shut his eyes in sad response. ‘We’re this close, Jayadeep.’

  He was almost whispering.

  The Ghost nodded. He too longed to see the artefact. For years he had dreamed of bearing witness to its unearthly lightshow. But on the other hand …

  ‘This artefact could be nothing more than a trinket. Even the Templars know nothing of its true potential.’

  ‘Scrolls are cryptic. That’s the point of them. They’re passed down through the ages so that our forefathers should think themselves more clever than we.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what he said, more or less.’

  ‘How perceptive of him. Perhaps he also pointed out that, trinket or not, the artefact’s actual powers are less important than the perception of their worth. Yes, it’s true that what lies beneath the earth may be an ancient bauble fit for nothing more devastating than entrancing old dames and impressionable children. But for centuries Assassins and Templars have fought over artefacts, and we have all heard the tales of their great power: the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the unearthly force unleashed by the Apple of Al Mualim … Is it possible, perhaps, that these tales have become exaggerated in the telling? After all, none of these artefacts have ever been so powerful they proved decisive in the war. And the scrolls are as good at aggrandizement as they are at being abstruse.’

  ‘My parents …’

  ‘Your parents are a case in point, bouncing you on their knee, filling your head with the tales of the artefacts’ awesome power.’ He looked across at The Ghost, who returned his gaze, not quite able to believe what he was hearing, and gave a dry chuckle. ‘Evie’s like you. She’s fascinated by the idea of artefacts just as you were fascinated by that stupid bloody diamond.’

  The Ghost bit down on his anger, saying nothing.

  ‘It’s the fascination with it, do you see? The idea of it. That’s where the talismanic power of the artefact lies. Assassin or Templar, we’re all in the business of selling ideas to the masses, and we all think our ideas are the ones to save the world, but one thing we have in common is the knowledge that these artefacts contain secrets of the First Civilization. Look around you …’ He indicated the false house in which they sat, the tunnel through which underground trains – underground trains – would soon travel. ‘We have steam power. Soon we will have electricity. The world is advancing at an almost unimaginable, unthinkable rate. The twentieth century is almost upon us and the twentieth century is the future, Jayadeep. The technology being used to build bridges, tunnels and railways – that same technology will be harnessed to create weapons of war. That’s the future. And unless you want to see man enslaved by tyranny and totalitarianism, then we need to win that future for our children and all the generations to come, who will one day sit with storybooks and read of our exploits and thank us for refusing to deliver them into despotism.

  ‘In other words, Jayadeep, we need to win at all costs. And that means you kill Pearson and the mission continues until we have recovered the artefact.’

  It was quite a speech. The Ghost let it sink in.

  Then: ‘No,’ he said.

  Ethan leapt angrily to his feet. ‘Damn you, man!’ he roared, too loudly for the still night. Then he bit his tongue and turned away from the steam hole to gaze angrily and unseeingly at the false brick-front of the house.

  ‘I cannot kill an innocent man in cold blood,’ insisted The Ghost. ‘Surely, after everything that has happened, you know that? Or is your desire for the artefact making you as blind to the truth as my father was?’

  Ethan turned and pointed. ‘He wasn’t the only one who was blind, my dear boy. You yourself thought you were ready, I seem to recall.’

  ‘I have more self-knowledge now. I know you’re asking me to do something I simply cannot do.’

  There was a catch in his voice, and Ethan softened to see the boy so wrought with despair: a boy brought up to kill for his cause but incapable of doing so. Once again he thought what a sad world, what an obscene state of affairs, when we mourned a man’s inability to kill.

  ‘Inform Cavanagh you plan to use a blowpipe. You can tell him you learnt its use in Bombay.’

  ‘But, master, I can’t kill an innocent man.’

  ‘You won’t have to.’

  49

  It was evening and with her breath held, Evie Frye crouched outside her father’s study as he sat with George Westhouse; the two men were talking in such low voices that she could barely hear them through the door. She tucked her hair behind her ear as she strained to listen.

  ‘Tomorrow then, Ethan,’ George was saying.

  ‘Yes, tomorrow.’

  ‘And if all goes well, then the artefact …’

  ‘They’re close, they say.’

  ‘Well, logic dictates they must be. After all, the tunnel is built.’

  ‘There are dozens of service tunnels, re-routed sewer pipes and gas mains still to install. There’s plenty of digging to be done yet. Besides, who’s to say the burst sewer in the Fleet Valley wasn’t their doing?’

  ‘True …’

  Just then there came a knock on the front door downstairs that startled Evie, and she stood quickly, slightly disorientated, before smoothing herself down and then going to answer it. They had no servants. Ethan would not have allowed it, believing the very idea of retaining servants went against the tenets of the creed. And so it was that young Evie Frye answered her own front door.

  There on the step stood a young Indian man wearing a brown suit. He was handsome, she thought, and yet there was something about him that offset his good looks, a wild and hunted expression that he fixed on her, regarding her from the grey lower steps with eyes that didn’t really see her. Nevertheless, when he proffered a letter he said her name. ‘Evie Frye.’

  She took it, a folded piece of paper. On the flap was written: For the attention of Ethan Frye.

  ‘Tell him that Ajay came,’ said the man on the doorstep, already turning to leave. ‘Tell him Ajay said he is sorry and that he will see him in the next life.’

  Rattled, Evie was glad to close the door on the strange, haunted man – then rushed to her father’s room.

  A second later the household was in uproar.

  ‘Jacob,’ called Ethan, storming out of his study with his forearm extended, buckling his hidden blade at the same time. ‘Arm yourself, you’re coming with me. Evie, you too. George, come on, there’s no time to waste.’

  He had unfolded the letter in a burst of panic, only to find a note written in code they had no time to translate. But Ajay – the man with the cryptic apology … Surely this was not the same Ajay who stood guard at The Darkness? Because if that man was in London then Ethan should have been informed … But then again, who else could it be?

  All four of them came bursting into the street, Ethan still buckling the blade, holstering his revolver and pulling on his robes at the same time, the two children thrilling to the sight of their father in action.

  ‘Which way did he go, darling?’ said Ethan to Evie.

  She pointed. ‘Towards the Broadway.’

  ‘Then we’re in luck. There are sewer works on The Broadway; he will have to turn on to Oakley Lane. Evie, Jacob, George, get
after him. With any luck he’ll take George to be me and not suspect I’ve worked my way in front of him. Go. Go.’

  The two young Assassins and George took off in the direction of the Broadway. Ethan ran for a wall that belonged to an opposite neighbour, and with a leap and a fast tap-tap of his boots, almost as though he were kicking the wall in mid-air, was on top and then over it.

  In front of him stretched the garden, and gazing along it, he experienced a brief moment of involuntary garden jealousy. He’d always wondered what size garden the neighbours had and here was his answer. Bigger. Twice the size of his own. Keeping to the shadows, he ran its length and then at the bottom, where even the gardeners feared to tread, he drew his hidden blade to hack at the undergrowth. Succumbing to the foliage at the back was a wall, but he scaled it easily before dropping to a passageway on the other side.

  All was quiet. Just the ever-present drip-drip of water. He strained to hear, picking out sounds from the distant surrounding city, until it came to him, a faraway rhythmic thud of running feet to his right.

  Excellent. Ethan set off, darting quietly along the passageway to the end and then waited in the shadows, listening again. The running feet were closer now. Good. Ajay had seen his pursuers and was taking evasive action. All his attention would be concentrated on what came from behind.

  Drainpipe, loose brick, window ledge – and then Ethan was on the roof of the adjacent building, framed against the moonlit sky but knowing his quarry was unlikely to look upwards. He was almost directly above the running footsteps in the alleyway below and he sprinted ahead, dashing to the end of the tenement then jumping to the pitched roof of the next.

  Flattening himself to the shingles he looked down into the street below and watched as a figure in a brown suit hurried into the alleyway, throwing a look behind himself at the same time.

  Ethan’s robes fluttered as he swung to the lip of the roof then let himself down to the cobbles below, where he took a seat on a crate and rested his chin in his hand as he awaited Ajay’s arrival.

  50

  Ajay didn’t see anything until it was too late and then was brought up short. Ex-Assassin though he was, he still thought like one, and he instantly appraised the situation and drew his kukri on the run, taking note of Ethan Frye’s position and posture – his body at rest, his leading hand hanging down by the side. And seeing an opponent who was too relaxed and too vulnerable to attack on his weaker side, it was to that flank that he directed his attack – fast and, if his assessments were correct, then decisively.

  But, of course, his assessments were not correct. They were based on assumptions that Ethan had anticipated, and as Ajay’s kukri flashed towards him, the older man’s hand shot out from beneath his chin, his blade engaging at the same second. There was a ring of steel as Ajay’s sword was blocked in mid-air, and then a scream of pain as Ethan completed his move with a downward slash that sheared off half of Ajay’s hand and took the blade away from him.

  The kukri dropped to the stone, along with a chunk of Ajay’s hand. In pain and disorientated as he was, he acted on instinct, ducking and spinning and kicking his sword back up the alley as he dived away from another attack.

  Ethan came to his feet and took a few steps up the alleyway, still reeling from the shock of recognition – Ajay, it is Ajay, how the hell did he get here? – just as the other man reached his weapon, stumbled and with one hurt and bleeding hand clutched to his chest, snatched it up from the cobbles with his good one.

  ‘This is a fight you can no longer win,’ called Ethan. The other three had appeared in the alley behind them and Ajay heard, turning to see his exit barred and then swinging back to face Ethan again, knowing, surely, that all was lost.

  ‘Why did you come to my door? Why did you attack me?’ Ethan took two steps forward threateningly. ‘I don’t want to hurt you any more, but I will, if I have to.’

  Again Ajay glanced behind him and back at Ethan, and then he stood up straight with his shoulders thrust back, and through a last wretched sob that bubbled up from some place of inner pain said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry to you and I’m sorry to Kulpreet, and I’m sorry for everything I have done.’

  And then he drew the blade across his own throat.

  51

  Later, when the children had gone to bed with the image of a choking, gurgling man painting the cobbles scarlet with his own blood still fresh in their heads, George and Ethan had retired to the study. Both were shaken by what had happened and troubled by the questions for which they had no ready answers, and so it was that they drank two glasses of Ethan’s best Highland whisky before either of them even said a word.

  (Which, having crept down from upstairs, Evie was there to overhear …)

  ‘A new development then,’ said George.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Damnedest thing.’

  Ethan stared off into nothing. He was thinking that he needed to send word to Amritsar first thing. Tell them they might be short an Assassin – and what news of Kulpreet?

  He said, ‘I suppose, on the bright side, it prepares the twins for their blooding.’

  George gave a dry laugh as his friend’s eyes came back to him. ‘This letter –’ he held out the document – ‘shall we decode it?’

  A short while later they sat at the study desk with the document and several Assassin codebooks open in front of them. And the translation. Ajay’s note had read: Position compromised, must abort. A friend.

  ‘“A friend” who’s lying out there somewhere not far from Oakley Lane.’ George set down the letter. The body would be discovered soon. At any moment the two Assassins expected to hear the sound of a peeler’s rattle.

  ‘The man out there died of shame,’ said Ethan.

  Outside Evie crouched, listening, thinking of Ajay, who had died of shame. She knew from her readings that in the annals of Assassins there was another, Ahmad Sofian, who had taken his life by the same means and for similar reasons.

  ‘Shame. Indeed. It would seem so,’ George was saying. ‘A traitor to the creed. But how much has he told our enemy? What does he even know to tell them? You’ve always been scrupulous with the information you’ve given me; I can’t imagine what he could have told them.’

  ‘Put it this way, George, if you and Ajay had got together then you might have been in possession of most of the facts. But one without the other? No chance.’

  ‘Even so, you must inform your Ghost at once.’

  Ethan chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure. I know The Ghost. He will err on the side of caution and abort the mission.’

  ‘Well, that’s what the note says to do.’ George leaned forward, his face clouding with incomprehension. ‘I’m not quite sure I can believe what I’m hearing, Ethan. If you inform The Ghost and he decides to continue with the operation then he is guilty of rank and dangerous optimism at best, and a tendency to suicide at worst. If he aborts he will be doing the right thing; the course of action we would recommend if we were thinking with our heads instead of our desires. Either way, we must tell him so he is able to choose.’

  Ethan shook his head. His mind was made up. ‘I trust The Ghost. I trust him to look after himself. Most of all, I trust him to recover the artefact.’

  ‘Then you must also trust him to make the right decisions.’

  ‘No, George. I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’

  From far away came the familiar clacking of the peeler’s alarm.

  52

  And so it came to pass. A day of great excitement. The Metropolitan Rai
lway had placed an advertisement in the previous evening’s newspapers to announce that tonight was a new beginning for the railway: Charles Pearson was to take a journey on the reopened stretch of line between King’s Cross and Farringdon Street. Not only that but he would be making the journey in an enclosed carriage, said to be the last word in underground railway luxury. Other railway dignitaries would be present, said the notices, and members of the public were also invited to witness this grand occasion – just so long as they stayed on the right side of the picket fence.

  And the public would come. Despite the excavation turning their lives into a living hell of noise and mud, closing roads and businesses alike, despite the fact that it had made thousands of already poverty-stricken Londoners homeless yet had had no discernible impact on the well-to-do, and despite the fact that it was over a year behind schedule and that the cost was now estimated at £1.3 million.

  They would come.

  A team of carpenters had been employed to build a set of steps down into the shaft at King’s Cross. Unlike Gladstone’s inaugural trip from Bishop’s Road four months before, the underground station at King’s Cross had yet to be built. Next year it would be constructed as an adjunct to the ten-year-old mainline station, with gables at either end, as well as pavilion roofs and parapets. What were currently cuttings acting as makeshift boarding points would be fashioned into proper platforms with stairways, ticket offices, kiosks set into the walls and footbridges at each end.

  But for now, it was little more than an ugly hole in the ground, and to accommodate railway top brass and their wives, the steps were built, and the cuttings were laid with planks to best approximate a proper platform, and instead of the flares that the men had used for night work, there were to be lamps strung along the top of the trench, as well as inside the shaft.