Assassin's Creed: Heresy

by Christie Golden

  Comfy? He moved experimentally, and was surprised to find that the answer was yes, and said so.

  At the moment, it should be completely dark, Victoria continued. The first thing you will see is the Memory Corridor. It’s designed to ease you into the simulation. We can converse easily here, but communication will be harder when the simulation becomes active. We’ll always start with the Memory Corridor, but the first time is particularly important. Don’t worry. This ought to be an easy transition as compared to previous models.

  The darkness seemed to be gradually retreating, turning from inky black to the soft, dove-gray of fog. Simon was reminded of a trip to the Scottish Highlands a few years back, when he’d been hiking up Ben Nevis and the fog had rolled in with startling speed. It was almost as if a cloud had decided to plunk itself down. The metaphor became suddenly more apt as Simon’s eyes were dazzled by crackles of what seemed to be lightning. The fog/cloud pulsed and roiled slowly, and as Simon watched, fascinated, it reshaped itself here and there, as if it were trying to mold itself into a building, or a tree trunk, or, perhaps, Ben Nevis.

  He reached out without thinking, and looked down at his hand. Simon had long, thin fingers, and did little in the way with them other than type or page through old tomes. Occasionally, they were ink-stained. But the hands he now regarded were strong, callused, sporting small scars and torn fingernails. They were darkly tanned, too; his own were milk-pale. Simon looked down at himself, seeing a beige woolen tunic that was oft-mended and more oft-stained. Blue hose covered what he could see of his legs, and on his feet Simon wore simple leather boots. A hood with a short cape covered his head.

  He felt his lips curving in a stupid grin as he rubbed the rough fabric of the cape between his right thumb and forefinger, his left hand reaching up to touch his face and discovering there a youth’s first downy wisps of beard.

  “Bonjour, Gabriel Laxart,” he said.

  That’s a strong resemblance, Victoria’s voice said. If I saw the two of you in a room together, I’d know you were family.

  “Is that unusual?”

  No, but often people are shocked at how much they don’t look like an ancestor, she replied. I put you at seventeen or so. You help your father, Durand Laxart, with—

  “Farming, yes, I know,” he said. “What’s the date?”

  Thursday, May Day, 1428. I thought we would start at the beginning. Go ahead and move around while the simulation finishes loading.

  It was an odd sensation, wearing a body like a set of clothing. The boy was slender—all right, Simon was slender, Gabriel was skinny—but wiry, and moved easily. A threshing motion came naturally, but when Simon tried to use his wooden walking staff as a pike or a sword, he dropped it.

  Clearly not a Templar yet, Victoria commented drily. Now, this is very important to remember. You are just along for the ride. Don’t resist the memories—you can’t change them. Don’t try to force Gabriel to do something or say something he wouldn’t, or you’ll desynchronize. And that is very unpleasant.

  “What, this Jaguar of an Animus hasn’t got that all sorted yet?”

  This isn’t a time machine, Simon. You can’t change the past, and if you try, the Animus lets you know in no uncertain terms. In a way, it’s a violent action, with an equally violent repercussion. You told me Gabriel was illegitimate, and he’s only recently come to live with his biological father. That’s going to work in your favor. He’s unfamiliar to almost everyone, so few will notice if you’re acting out of character.

  Simon nodded acknowledgement. The stigma attached to bastards was, historically speaking, a fairly recent development, so it wasn’t surprising the Laxarts, a farming family, had taken in an able-bodied young man. Gabriel’s parentage also explained why nothing in Simon’s research had turned up any mention of him. Unless they were remarkable in a significant way, illegitimate children were seldom recorded. Family trees didn’t like random branches.

  While Victoria had been speaking, the roiling mists had become more substantial, clearer, their flat gray flushing to green and blue. Simon found himself facing emerald fields dotted with cattle and sheep. Behind him was a rough road and cottages that indicated he was on the outskirts of a small village.

  Domrémy. Joan’s birthplace. The only sounds were those of wind in the trees, birds, and the lowing of cattle. The quiet was unnerving. No cars or planes, or air conditioners, or computers, or mobile phones. For some reason, he hadn’t expected that.

  He stood for a moment, simply getting used to the idea that he was reliving the memories of a long-dead young man. So real; from the slight breeze brushing his face, to the smells, to the feel of the earth beneath his feet. If Abstergo Entertainment’s games provide even a fraction of this, Simon thought, it’s no wonder they’ve won so many awards.

  Simon looked down at Gabriel’s hands, and realized he was holding bread and cheese wrapped up in a cloth bundle. Victoria had said it was May 1… a feast day. Ah… now he had it figured out. He’d learned through his research that a long-standing tradition in Domrémy saw the town’s young people visiting the nearby spring on certain feast days. They would, essentially, enjoy a picnic near what they called the Ladies’ Tree, or the Fairy Tree. This rather charming custom was called “doing the fountains,” and it was clear to him now that Gabriel was on his way to join in.

  He began to walk, letting Gabriel find the way. The boy was tall and gangly, as Simon himself had been in his youth; he understood the motion of long legs, and Gabriel was someone accustomed to walking.

  The breeze brought the sound of happy laughter, voices (some terribly off-key) raised in song, and the bright noises of small pipes. A large tree was silhouetted against the blue sky, and there was movement under its branches. Simon was no botanist. He wasn’t even particularly fond of nature. But the tree was glorious. White petals dotted the green-leafed boughs. The simple color was offset with the pinks, reds, and blues of other flowers, all woven into garlands and draped over the large, lower branches.

  Girls of various ages sat in a small cluster, their heads bowed together as they laughed and played with the flowers. Another group had formed a small circle, engaged in a dance that bordered on a dizzying run about the tree’s thick trunk. The boys either climbed the tree or sprawled on the grass, tearing off hunks of coarse brown bread. The older ones offered some bread to the girls; the younger ones tossed small pieces at them instead.

  I don’t belong here, came a thought, and Simon wasn’t sure if it was his or Gabriel’s.

  For a moment, Gabriel’s long legs were rooted to the spot. One of the older youths dropped lithely from the branches and strode toward him. He had dark hair, a swarthy complexion, and an open, friendly smile.

  “You must be our cousin Gabriel!” he said cheerfully. “I’m Pierre. That lout over there is my brother Jean.” The lout under discussion was busily polishing off the last of the bread and brushing crumbs off his shirt. He was older and larger than Pierre, solid where the younger brother was quick and lithe.

  “Hello, Pierre,” Gabriel said. “Y-your mama sent me with this.”

  “Ha!” Pierre said. “Hey, Jean, you don’t have to stop eating after all.” Jean looked up at the sound of his name and got to his feet, ambling toward them.

  Even as Gabriel spoke with his cousins, Simon was wondering where Joan was. “I hear your father saves the town when brigands come,” Gabriel was saying. Jacques d’Arc was the town’s doyen, a position that collected taxes and organized Domrémy’s defenses.

  “Burgundians, you mean,” Pierre said darkly.

  “It’s the same thing,” Jean said. He tore off a piece of bread and handed the loaf back to Gabriel. The bread was coarse but delicious, and the cheese was creamy and rich and gamy. “Living in Burey-en-Vaux, you’re close to Vaucouleurs, so you have the king’s soldiers to protect you.”

  “They’re supposed to protect you, too,” Gabriel said, but Pierre simply shrugged. Clearly, this was an uncomfortable su
bject in Domrémy. “So,” he said, trying again, “do you fight the brigands yourselves?” Gabriel had never seen a raid, and it sounded terribly exciting.

  “Oh, no. We get out of their way. Papa has rented an old fortress on an island in the river where we can all go with our animals, and as much as we can take with us. Sometimes we go to Neufchâteau, if the attack blocks our way to the island,” Pierre’s pleasant face hardened. “Our house is made of stone, but most aren’t so lucky.”

  Gabriel sobered at the words. “Has… has anyone been killed?”

  “Not recently. We generally get enough warning that everyone and their animals can get to shelter.”

  Pierre kicked his brother, who responded with a yelp muffled by a mouthful of cheese. “Gabriel, go give some to Jeannette before this pig eats it all. She’s been dancing all day, when she hasn’t been wandering off to go stare at the river as if it’s talking to her. I’m sure she’s hungry.”

  “Which one is she?” Excitement fluttered in Simon’s chest.

  “The lively one there, in the red,” Pierre said, pointing. Joan was indeed the “lively one,” moving with high energy, her body strong and lithe as she moved. Long, slightly wild black hair dotted with flowers fell the length of her straight back.

  I am the luckiest historian who has ever lived, thought Simon, almost giddy as Gabriel strode on long, coltish legs toward Joan of Arc.

  “Jeanette?” Gabriel said. His hands were shaking as they clutched the offering of bread and cheese.

  Joan of Arc, La Pucelle, the Maid of Orléans, future patron saint of France, turned around.

  Her eyes were large and fierce and blue and steady, and they seemed to slice through Gabriel as if piercing through body and bone to his very soul. He couldn’t breathe, could only stare back, blood suddenly galloping through his veins to rush into his face and—

  The world folded in on itself like a crumpled piece of paper, all its images and color and solidity retreating at a breakneck pace, bearing away that ineffable, transcendent face with them.

  Simon Hathaway was left only with blackness and his own scream.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  imon, what—

  A tsunami of nausea crashed over Simon, as if an irate giant had gut-punched him. His throat was raw; he realized he had shouted, was still shouting, although he couldn’t hear a sound. He shivered in the restraints, his body drenched in sweat, his mouth dry as cotton. Then the helm was lifted and cool air bathed his damp face. He stopped screaming and gulped in oxygen, staring at a woman’s face he didn’t recognize.

  Not hers.

  “I’m so sorry, Simon.” The voice was familiar, and a name floated to him, piercing his panic. Victoria. “I wasn’t expecting that sort of a reaction from this particular simulation. Do you need a bucket?”

  The thought was so appalling Simon forced back the bile from sheer will and grunted something she would interpret as “no” as she unfastening him from myriad clasps and monitors that suddenly felt as if they were crawling all over him. Good, simple, rough wool was what his skin abruptly craved.

  “What happened?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

  She eyed him, concerned. “You desynchronized, pretty violently,” she said. “That reaction was more suited to a battlefield recollection. What happened?”

  “Not sure.” He nodded his thanks and started to step off the platform. He was still a bit wobbly, and when Victoria slipped a hand under his elbow, he accepted her assistance. She guided him to a chair and handed him a glass of water. “You were right—desynchronization is indeed not pleasant. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest by a horse.”

  Victoria gave him a little smile, looking relieved at his quick recovery. “You say that like you’ve had firsthand experience. Have you?”

  “No,” Simon said, “but Gabriel has, and that’s precisely what it feels like. What happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “It could be a couple of things. Simon—you deliberately pulled yourself out of it. Why?”

  “I did not,” he said.

  “Yes,” she persisted, “you did. Gabriel wasn’t about to go anywhere.”

  “Nonsense. Neither was I. I’m a historian meeting Joan of Arc, for heaven’s sake, why would I try to avoid that?”

  “You tell me.” Victoria held up a hand to forestall his protests. “I’ve been doing this quite a while, Simon, and I have gotten very good at determining the origins of a sudden desynchronization.” Gently, she said, “Simon… you fled.”

  His face was burning.

  “I can’t in good conscience continue with you until I understand why. It might not be safe.”

  “I’ll tell you what wouldn’t be safe—my job, if I don’t present Rikkin with something he wants to see,” Simon snapped. He ran a hand through his hair, finding it damp with sweat.

  Victoria continued implacably. “If it’s the Bleeding Effect, a job hunt will be the least of your worries. Simon, your stats went through the roof. You began to sweat, your heart rate dramatically increased, and your brain released a flood of chemicals. As I said—had you been in battle, it would make sense, but….”

  She shook her head and fell silent for a moment. Then, in a calmer voice, she continued, “I told you I have seen someone so lost in the past that he thought he actually was the Assassin whose memories he was studying. He broke up with his girlfriend, because he was in love with a girl two centuries dead. He had blackouts, and when he came out of them found letters written to him from Arno Dorian—in French. He didn’t speak a word of it. It killed him, Simon, in the end. I found it extremely difficult to bear, and I’ve lived with guilt ever since. I should have removed him from the assignment before things got so bad for him. I refuse to make that mistake again. So tell me now—why did you desynchronize?”

  Simon sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “Something about that girl thrilled him—and terrified him.”

  “But not you?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t feel it now,” he said, and that much, at least was the truth.

  Victoria cocked her head and looked at him with a strange expression. Then, to his confusion, she seemed to be holding back a smile.

  “One moment,” she said, and went back to the computer, checking his stats. “The chemicals that were released were primarily serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Do you understand what that means?”

  “I’m not a chemist.”

  Her smile widened. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how overwhelming first love can be,” she said.

  He stared at her. “Really?” he said, chagrined.

  “Really.”

  He blew out a sigh. “Well, that’s just bloody wonderful,” he said. “I’m going to be tagging along in the body of a teenage boy in the grips of a massive first crush. I hope some fighting proves to be a good release for all that testosterone.”

  “Oh, it could be worse,” Victoria said.

  “No,” Simon said, his voice weary and his words utterly sincere. “It really couldn’t.”

  “If it helps any,” Victoria said, “I’ll remind you that Joan of Arc was supposed to be astonishingly charismatic. A teenage boy with an interest in girls probably wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

  Calmer now, his thoughts his own, Simon recalled what he had seen, trying to view a woman who later would become France’s patron saint not through the eyes of a hormone-addled youth, but through his own.

  “I suppose I can accept that hypothesis. But I think… it was more than that, somehow. Something else was at play.” He looked at her. “I want to go back in.”

  She considered it, then nodded. “All right. But let’s not pick up right there.” Simon was quietly grateful. Victoria’s eyes flickered over her notes. “Joan went back to Burey-en-Vaux with the Laxarts for about a week.” She looked up at Simon, smothering a grin. “Maybe she wanted to spend more time with Gabriel.”

  “Oh, perfect,” Simon lamented.

&nb
sp; “Sorry,” Victoria said, in a voice that suggested that she wasn’t. I’ll send you back in the simulation to sometime late Monday, May 12—or maybe very early May 13. Ready?”

  “Absolutely,” he stated with a certainty he didn’t feel.

  He knew a bit about what to expect this time, so it was marginally less jarring. Even so, the Memory Corridor’s fog felt alien, and he wasn’t sure what effect returning to the simulation would have on him.

  As the strange gray clouds reformed into shapes, Victoria asked, So what do you, Simon, think of Joan?

  “Me? Well, she’s fascinating,” he said. “And if she did have a Sword of Eden, much of what was reported about her seems more plausible. She did live in a world that was much less skeptical than our own, when it comes to hearing voices from God. For them, it wasn’t if someone heard something, it was whether what they heard was from God or Satan.”

  But what do you think of her?

  “I—I haven’t, really,” he said. The restoration of the simulation was almost complete. “I’m a historian. I’m not really supposed to like or dislike, just observe.”

  That will help you resist any Bleeding Effects, Victoria approved.

  The fog in the Memory Corridor had given way to a soft darkness, and a sky lit only by stars and the faintest sliver of a waning moon.

  Gabriel had awoken around midnight. Ever since Joan’s arrival, he had found himself restless and easily distracted, his sleep punctuated by waking at annoying and seemingly random hours. Not even the physically exhausting work of caring for his father’s livestock, so different from his experience as an assistant to his merchant stepfather, sufficiently wore him out so he slept through the night. He had taken to wandering through the narrow streets, though Burey-en-Vaux was so small that the journey never lasted long. He would linger outside the Laxart house as he did now, leaning against the archway and looking up towards the heavens, before going back inside to toss and turn fitfully until the next time he woke.