The one who was speaking was in a bad mood and not afraid to let it show. Indeed, he seemed on the edge of hysteria. “Ti distihìa!” he was saying in aggrieved tomes. “What misery! Do you know how long we’ve been searching this filthy cistern?”
“I’ve been here a few weeks,” replied his quieter friend.
“That’s nothing! Try thirteen months! Ever since our Grand Master found that damned key!” He calmed himself a little. “But he hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing. All he knows”—the soldier’s tone became sarcastic—“is that they’re ‘somewhere in the city.’ ”
Hearing this, the other soldier grew more excited himself, sounding overwhelmed at the prospect ahead of them. “This is a very big city . . .”
“I know! That’s what I said myself—under my breath.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of a sergeant. “Get on with your work, you bums! You think you’re paid to sit around on your arses all day?”
Grumbling, the men resumed their task. Ezio shadowed them, hoping to pick up more information. The men were joined by a handful of other soldiers, similarly begrimed and discontented.
But Ezio had to watch his step. Tired and disgruntled the soldiers might have been, but they were well trained, and vigilant.
“Petros!” one called to another. “Make sure we have enough torches for the excavation. I’m tired of stumbling around in the dark.”
Ezio pricked up his ears at the word “excavation,” but as he moved forward again, his sword scabbard scraped against one of the columns, and the vaulted roofs echoed and amplified the slight sound.
The man called Petros darted a look behind him. “There’s someone down here with us!” he hissed. “Keep your eyes open and your hands steady.”
The troops were instantly on the alert, urgently calling to one another in muted voices.
“Do you see anything?”
“Search every corner!”
Ezio retreated farther into the shadows and waited patiently for the panic to die down. At the same time, he made a mental note to be extra careful in the exaggerated acoustic.
Gradually, the guards resumed their search. As he watched, he could see that their actions seemed aimless and that they knew it. But he continued to watch, hoping to detect a pattern, listening to their desultory conversation as he did so.
“It stinks down here.”
“What do you expect? It’s a sewer.”
“I could use a breath of air.”
“Patience! Shift’s up in three hours!”
“Keep it down, you!” barked the sergeant, approaching again. “And keep your ears open. The Lord Jesus knows why they picked you lot for a delicate mission like this.”
Ezio moved forward, past the men, until he came upon a stone embankment, on which two junior officers were standing by a brazier. He listened in to their conversation.
“We’re one step ahead of the Assassins, I know that much,” one was saying to the other.
“The Grand Master has ordered that we make all haste. They may be closer than we think.”
“He must have his reasons. What do these keys look like anyway?”
“Like the one we discovered beneath Topkapi. That’s got to be the assumption.”
The other lieutenant shook himself. “Eight hours of this filth. Apistefto!”
“I agree. I’ve never been so bored in all my life.”
“Yeah. But we’re bound to find the keys soon.”
“In your dreams.”
But the first lieutenant to speak had suddenly glanced round quickly. “What was that?”
“Probably a rat. The Savior knows, there are enough of them down here.”
“All the shadows seem to move.”
“It’s just the firelight.”
“Someone is out there. I can feel it.”
“Watch yourself. You’ll go mad.”
Ezio inched past them, moving as slowly as he could despite wanting to rush, for he dared not let the water around his calves make so much as a ripple. At last he found himself well beyond the two officers and the rest of the Templars, feeling his way along the wall of a dank corridor, much lower and narrower than the pillared halls it led off.
Somehow, it felt right. As soon as the light and noise of the Templars had died out completely behind him, he felt secure enough to relight the candle and drew it from his side satchel along with the tinderbox, praying that he would drop neither as he juggled to strike a spark to light it.
At last he was ready. Pausing for a moment to ensure that he wasn’t being followed, he continued along the corridor as it twisted and turned, and, to his consternation, divided into separate, alternative passageways. Occasionally, he took the wrong one and came up against a blank wall. Retracing his steps to find the right way again, he began to wonder if he were not in some kind of maze. Ever deeper and darker he went, praying he’d remember the way back, and that he could trust the bookshop owner, until he was rewarded by a dim glow ahead of him. No more than the glow of a firefly but enough to guide him.
He followed the passageway until it opened out into a small circular chamber, its domed roof all but lost in the shadows above. Half columns stood along the walls at regular intervals, and there was no sound but that of dripping water.
In the center of the chamber was a small stone stand, and on it rested a folded map. Ezio opened it and found it to be a plan of Constantinople, in infinite detail, with the Polo brothers’ old trading post clearly marked at its center. Four lines divided up the map, and each demarcated section showed a landmark of the city.
Around the margins of the map the titles of twelve books were written, but of these twelve the titles of four were placed, one each, next to each divided section of the map. The four books had their titles illuminated in green, blue, red, and black.
Ezio carefully folded the map again and placed it in his satchel. Then he turned his attention to what was placed at the center of the stone stand.
It was a carved-stone disc, no more than four inches across. The disk was thin, tapering toward its outer edges, and made of a stone that might have been obsidian. It was pierced at its exact center by a precisely circular hole, half an inch in diameter. Its surface was covered with designs, some of which Ezio recognized from the Codex pages that had been in his father and uncle’s collection. A sun whose rays ended in outstretched hands extending toward a world; strange humanoid creatures of indeterminate sex, with exaggerated eyes, lips, foreheads, and bellies; what looked like abstruse mathematical symbols and calculations.
From this, the lightning-bug glow emanated.
Carefully, almost reverently, Ezio took it in his hands. He had not experienced such a feeling of awe since he had last handled the Apple, and he already seemed to know what it was he was handling.
As he turned it over in his hands, its glow intensified.
Che succede? Ezio thought. What’s happening . . . ?
As he watched, the glow became a sunburst, from which he had to shield his eyes, as the chamber exploded into a hurricane of light.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Somehow Ezio was there, and not there. But he couldn’t be sure if was dreaming or had fallen into some kind of trance.
But he knew exactly when and where he was—it was centuries before his own birth—late in the twelfth century. The date of the year of Our Lord 1189 floated through his consciousness, as he walked—or drifted—through swirling clouds and crisscrossing rays of unearthly light, which parted at last to reveal—at a distance—a mighty fortress.
Ezio recognized the place at once: Masyaf. The clouds seem to bear him closer. There were the sounds of fierce battle. Ezio saw cavalrymen and infantry locked in mortal combat. Then the sounds of a horse’s hooves, as it approached at full gallop. A young Assassin, dressed in white, cowled, riding furiously through the scene.
Ezio watched—and, as he watched, seemed to lose himself—his own personality . . . Something was happening which seemed half-re
cognized, half-remembered; a message from a past of which he knew nothing yet with which he was totally familiar . . .
The young man in white charged, with his sword drawn, through the gates, into the midst of the skirmish. Two burly Crusaders were about to deliver the coup de grace to a wounded Assassin. Leaning from the saddle, the young man felled the first soldier with a clean stroke before reining his horse in and leaping off his mount in a swirl of dust. The second Crusader had whirled around to confront him. In a second, the young man drew a throwing knife and aimed it at the Crusader, hurling it with deadly accuracy, so that it buried itself in the man’s neck, just below the helmet. The man fell to his knees, then collapsed forward, on his face in the dirt.
The young man dashed over to the aid of his comrade, who had collapsed against a tree. The injured man’s sword had slipped from his hand, and he leaned forward, his back against the tree trunk, grasping his ankle and grimacing.
“Where are you hurt?” asked the young man, urgently.
“Broken foot. You arrived in the nick of time.”
The young man bent under his comrade and helped him to his feet, placing one of his arms round his shoulders and helping him to a bench against the wall of a stone outbuilding.
The injured Assassin looked up at him. “What is your name, brother?”
“Altaïr. Son of Umar.”
The injured Assassin’s face brightened in recognition. “Umar. A fine man, who died as he had lived—with honor.”
A third Assassin was staggering toward them from the main part of the battle, bloodied and exhausted. “Altaïr!” he cried. “We have been betrayed! The enemy has overrun the castle!”
Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad finished dressing his fallen comrade’s wound. Patting him on the shoulder, he reassured him: “You’ll live.” Then he turned to address the newcomer. No friendly look was exchanged between them. “Grave news, Abbas. Where is Al Mualim?”
Abbas shook his head. “He was inside when the Crusaders broke through. We can do nothing for him now.”
Altaïr didn’t reply immediately but turned to face the castle, rising among its rocky crags a few hundred yards away. He was thinking.
“Altaïr!” Abbas interrupted him. “We must fall back!”
Altaïr turned back to him calmly. “Listen. When I close the castle gates, flank the Crusader units in the village and drive them into the canyon to the west.”
“Same foolhardiness,” growled Abbas angrily. “You don’t stand a chance!”
“Abbas!” retorted Altaïr sternly. “Just—make no mistakes.”
Remounting, he rode toward the castle. As he cantered along the familiar roadway, he was grieved at the scenes of destruction that met his eye. Villagers were straggling along the side of the path. One raised her head as she was passing, and cried: “Curse these Crusaders! May they fall beneath your sword, every one of them!”
“Leave prayers to the priests, my sister.”
Altaïr spurred his horse on, his progress slowed by pockets of Crusaders engaged in looting, and preying upon those denizens of Masyaf attempting to regain the village from the beleaguered fortress. Three times he had to expend precious time and energy in defending his people from the depredations of these surly Franks, who styled themselves Soldiers of Christ. But the words of gratitude and encouragement rang in his ears as he rode on, and spurred his purpose:
“Bless you, Assassin!”
“I was certain I’d be killed! Thank you!”
“Drive these Crusaders back into the sea, once and for all!”
At last he reached the gate. It yawned open. Looking up, Altaïr could see a fellow Assassin frantically working at the winch mechanism on the gatehouse, some hundred feet above. A platoon of Assassin foot soldiers were grouped at the foot of one of the nearby towers.
“Why is the gate still open?” Altaïr called to him.
“Both winches are jammed. The castle is swarming with the enemy.”
Altaïr looked into the courtyard of the castle to see a group of Crusaders making for him. He addressed the lieutenant in charge of the platoon. “Hold this position.”
Sheathing his sword and dismounting, he started to climb the outer wall of the gatehouse and, shortly afterward, arrived at the side of the comrade who was working to free the winches. Frantically, they worked on them, and their combined strength prevailed—at least, enough to free the gate partially, and it slipped down a few feet, juddering and groaning.
“Nearly there,” said Altaïr, through gritted teeth. His muscles bulged as he and his fellow Assassin struggled to dislodge the cogs of the second winch. At last it gave, and the gate came crashing down on the melee between Assassins and Crusaders taking place below. The Assassins managed to leap clear, but the Crusaders’ troop was divided by the falling gate, some inside the castle, others trapped outside.
Altaïr made his way down the stone steps that led from the top of the gatehouse to the central courtyard of Masyaf. The scattered bodies of Assassins attested to the fierce fighting that had only recently taken place there. As he looked around, scanning the ramparts and battlements, a door in the Great Keep opened, and from it emerged a group of people who made him draw in his breath sharply. A company of elite Crusader infantrymen surrounded the Mentor of the Brotherhood—A l Mualim. The old man was semiconscious. He was being dragged along by two brutal-looking troopers. With them was a figure with a dagger, whom Altaïr recognized. A big, tough man with dark, unreadable eyes, and a deep, disfiguring scar on his chin. His thin hair was tied up in a black ribbon.
Haras.
Altaïr had long wondered where Haras’s true loyalties had lain. An Assassin adept, he had never seemed satisfied with the rank assigned to him within the Brotherhood. He was a man who sought an easy route to the top rather than one that rewarded merit. Though a man with a well-deserved reputation as a fighter, chameleon-like, he had always managed to worm his way into other people’s confidence by adapting his personality to suit theirs. His ambitions had clearly got the better of him, and, seeing an opportunity, he had traitorously thrown in his lot with the Crusaders. Now he even dressed in Crusader uniform.
“Stand back, Altaïr!” he cried. “Another step, and your Mentor dies!”
At the sound of the voice, Al Mualim rallied, stood proud, and raised his own voice. “Kill this wretch, Altaïr! I do not fear death!”
“You won’t leave this place alive, traitor!” Altaïr called to Haras.
Haras laughed. “No. You misunderstand. I am no traitor.” He took a helmet, which was hanging from his belt, and donned it. A Crusader helmet! Haras laughed again. “You see? I could never betray those I never truly loved.”
Haras started to walk toward Altaïr.
“Then you are doubly wretched,” said Altaïr. “For you have been living a lie.”
Things happened quickly then. Haras drew his sword and lunged toward Altaïr. At the same moment, Al Mualim managed to break free of his guards and, with a strength that belied his age, wrested the sword from one of them and cut him down. Profiting from Haras’s momentary distraction, Altaïr unleashed his hidden-blade and struck at the traitor. But Haras squirmed out of the way and brought his own sword down in a cowardly stroke while Altaïr was off balance.
Altaïr rolled to one side, springing back to his feet quickly as a knot of Crusaders rushed to Haras’s defense. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Al Mualim fighting another group.
“Kill the bastard!” snarled Haras, stepping out of harm’s way.
Altaïr tasted fury. He surged forward, slicing through the throats of two Crusader assailants. The others fell back in fear, leaving Haras isolated and petrified. Altaïr cornered him where two walls met. He had to make haste and finish the job, to go to his Mentor’s assistance.
Haras, seeing Altaïr momentarily distracted, cut at him quickly, ripping the cloth of his tunic. Altaïr lashed back in retaliation and plunged his hidden-blade straight into the base of Haras’s neck, just
above the sternum. With a strangled cry, the traitor fell back, crashing against the wall. Altaïr stood over him.
Haras looked up as Altaïr’s figure blocked the sun. “You put too much faith in the hearts of men, Altaïr,” he said, barely getting the words out as the blood bubbled from his chest. “The Templars know what is true. Humans are weak, base, and petty.” He didn’t know he could have been describing himself.
“No, Haras. Our Creed is evidence to the contrary. Try to return to it, even now, in your last hour. I beg you out of pity to redeem yourself.”
“You will learn, Altaïr. And you will learn the hard way.” Nevertheless, Haras paused in thought for a moment, and even as the light in his eyes slowly died, he fought for speech. “Perhaps I am not wise enough to understand, but I suspect the opposite of what you believe is true. I am at least too wise to believe such rubbish as you do.”
Then his eyes became marble, and his body leaned to one side, a long, rattling sigh escaping from it as it relaxed in death.
The doubt he’d seeded in Altaïr’s mind didn’t take root immediately. There was too much to be done for there to be time for thought. The young man wheeled round and joined his Mentor, fighting shoulder to shoulder until the Crusader band was routed, either sprawled in the bloody dust or fled.
Around them, meanwhile, the signs were that the battle had turned in the Assassins’ favor. The Crusader army was beating a retreat from the castle though the battle beyond it continued. Messengers soon arrived to confirm that.
Recovering from their exertions, Altaïr and Al Mualim paused for a moment’s respite under a tree by the side of the gate of the Great Keep.
“That man—that wretch, Haras—you offered him a last chance to salvage his dignity, to see the error of his ways. Why?”
Flattered that his Mentor should seek his opinion, Altaïr replied: “No man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness, some chance of redemption.”
“But he shunned what you proffered him.”
Altaïr shrugged mildly. “That was his right.”
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