Masyaf September 1192 CE

One year, Malik thought. One year of change, turmoil, fear, sadness. He sighed heavily, scratching his shoulder where an arm should have been. One year and more since he’d lost his arm, a part of himself that he still missed dearly, no matter that he’d forgiven the man whose actions had caused the loss. The year since the tragic events at Solomon’s Temple and here in the very bedrock of the Assassins themselves had not been one of quiet after the storm. Far from it. The new Master was rash, arrogant – rubbed even the irascible Altair the wrong way. He’d sent Malik like some lackey to search for the elusive Brother who laid claim with pride to the title of MASTER Assassin. It was that word, Malik reflected as he climbed the stairs of the north tower, that word MASTER that really stuck in the new leader’s craw. He could not stand to have one above him. So he made his disdain for Altair known to all, assigning him missions of lesser import than those granted to novices who only aspired to the title of Assassin. As his friend, Malik came in for his own share of ridicule. Abbas could not but goad both of them with veiled insults and insinuations. Malik could always tell when Altair was perilously close to breaking: the man went very quiet and still like a snake or an eagle gathering its wings to strike. He himself maintained an unruffled exterior that cost him much in patience and peace. And to think that he had thought Altair could be insufferable!
He stopped on the stairs, near a window that let in the weak fall light in a bar on to the bare stone. His heart hammered after a long climb and he still had as much to go. For a few moments he was caught by the fall colours of the trees covering the mountainside surrounding Masyaf. Masyaf, every Assassin’s refuge, home and family. To think that trouble could come home to roost so deeply had been unbelievable a year ago when al Mualim had sent a disgraced Master Assassin on a series of missions to purge his soul and the land. Little had either Malik or Altair known just what the Master’s plans had really been. He shook his head. Both of them had been naïve and stupid. He, for believing the Master had the Brotherhood’s interests and heart and for allowing anger to burn him through.
Altair, for toeing the line as long as he had, trying to reclaim his lost honour. They had both been younger then, in years and in wisdom. One year could really do wonders, Malik thought sourly. So many changes in such a short amount of time.

He went on, slower now. There was no need to hurry. He knew Altair was up there, alone. As he’d been for almost two weeks now. Irritable. Silent. Prowling the fortress. Spending uncountable hours in his garden sanctuary – the one place where the new Master had not tried to find him. But Malik had always known. He could read his friend and Brother in ways that not even Altair’s father could. That was why the wounds they’d each inflicted on the other hurt so much: from their love and friendship they knew the words to inflict deep cuts in the heart that would scar. They had set aside their quarrel in the face of al Mualim’s treachery. Malik still could not comprehend that the man he’d respected and learned so much from could have succumbed to the very temptations he’d warned the Brothers against. His deceptions had undermined the faith of many Brothers who’d left: some to Alamut in Persia, others as vagabonds. The new Master tried to hunt them down but bungled the job: no Brother would hunt his own, even apostate.
Malik understood them well. He would have left himself if not for Altair who’d inherited… Malik shivered in the weak sun. Just looking at that thing was enough to shrivel a man’s spirit. “Temptation given form,” he murmured, eyes unfocused in the distance. Al Mualim’s very words. Altair had told him, once he’d been able to talk about the events of that fall day when he’d taken al Mualim’s life.

That was why Altair stood atop the tower as Malik finally reached the top. That was why Altair spoke to no one and carried out all missions assigned him. Altair had done the unthinkable, the unprecedented that day. He had raised his hand against the Master who’d led the Brotherhood for better part of thirty years. The man who’d been respected, feared and admired, but never loved, by many. The power and the strength of his will had been incredible. The new Master could never fill his shoes, self proclaimed leader as he was, with no backing.

Malik spied the white robed statuesque figure near the parapet, straight as a board, still as an effigy. The one armed Rafiq stopped, afraid. Why was the man he’d called Brother for so long so silent and brooding? Did he harbour thoughts of demise? Or vengeance? “Do not let vengeance cloud your judgment, Brother. We both know no good can come of that.” His own words. Across the space of a year. Again his right hand went to the stump where a functioning arm had been not so long ago when he had been whole, when his brother had been with him. Kadar. Taken too soon. By Templars. Malik closed his eyes to keep back that tide of emotion and memory that never failed to come once his brother’s name came to mind. He had tried. He had tried his best. He had sworn long ago that no harm would visit his brother before it hit him. How foolish that vow had proven to be. Did he too seek vengeance? Against the Templars who’d killed his younger brother? He had thought not. He had thought himself, at least, in control of his feelings and thoughts. Unlike the ever-impulsive arrogant Altair. So wrong, about both of them he’d been. It was a wonder he could look himself in the eye of a morning.

“I killed him.”

Malik started slightly. He should have known. Nothing passed by Altair’s instincts. There was no one now left to rival Altair for skill or aptitude. He took a step towards the parapet. His Brother’s face was hidden by the edge of the hood with the eagle’s beak in the centre. But the voice told him much: it was bleak, ridden with guilt still after a year. Malik knew the nightmares that plagued his Brother, none better. He’d listened to the delirious wanderings of a mind in torment for weeks.

“Brother…” He reached out a hand to Altair’s shoulder. “It aids not to dwell on what happened. Lest it eat you. From within.”

He kept his own voice calm, soothing. What he had seen that day a year ago on entering the still empty garden had risen the hair on the back of his neck. He had seen Altair sprawled in the water, hand outstretched to the silver ball that had emanated some sort of hallucination. That had been the only feasible explanation for what his eyes had seen: he had been tired, he had imagined a globe with continents writ on it. His only concern then had been the body in the blood-red water. For a time – a horrific few minutes – he’d been sure that Altair too was dead. That al Mualim was gone from the world he could well see: Altair was nothing if not thorough. Rare was a man who walked away from meeting Altair’s blade.

“He had been like a father to me.” The self-loathing was evident in Altair’s tone, that bitterness that he’d kept and carried since that day, alone and in silence. “He had become a traitor.”

Malik noted the choice of words. “Become”, not “was”. He leaned closer, to see Altair better. A thin line of a mouth in a face that was a mask, a familiar mask, of the Assassin.

“What mean you, Brother? Surely he was a great man but…”

Altair shook his head. “Malik, don’t you see?” There was emotion at last, an eagerness to understand, to tell, of his thoughts. “It had not always been so. He had not been corrupted – until he saw that ball, that Piece of Eden.” His brow knit in a frown giving him a very predatory expression, had he but known it, Malik thought. “He had understood the Creed, the tenets – what they meant, their authority.” Altair shook his head, shoulders heaving in a great sigh of regret. “But then… he changed.” He faced Malik. That bleached tone again. Malik could not help but shiver, even though the air was not cold nor was there any wind. “I know I HAD to kill him. He had become diseased, rotten like a piece of meat left too long in the warmth of the house. That ball…” His fist clenched, he breathed through his nose sharply like a horse. “I’ve studied it. Resisted it. Let my mind and its own come together.”

Malik stared at him in dawning realization. This was more than guilt over a justifiable killing. Altair let out his breath shakily, hand waving unsteadily. Malik could not put words to the feeling in his gut of increasing despair. If Altair went under as al Mualim had, they were indeed lost. Malik knew he too would go after the ball, that treasure he’d risked his life to bring back – Altair was not the only guilty one. If Malik had known a year ago what a dangerous treasure he’d carried back, that Piece of Eden that had sundered the Brotherhood, he’d have gone back and let the Templars kill him. Or thrown himself from the nearest cliff with the damn thing in his hands to be washed away by the river to sea. He was as much to blame for this. The two of them were the only ones who knew enough to steer the Brotherhood away from destruction. They both had to keep en eye on that Piece of Eden. He’d lost an arm to it, not because of Altair. Kadar was dead because that thing wanted blood – it had seemed to pulse in the garden as he’d knelt by the inert body of the man he’d called friend and brother all these years.
“’Come together’?” It was worse than he’d thought. He too had felt its pull on the long road home. He had not given in to it only because of his anger and pain that had kept him alive and distracted from the insidious prompting of the treasure he’d clutched dearer than Kadar on that arduous journey home from Jerusalem. “I will not admonish you that such a mind meld was foolish. Be careful, Altair, beware that you do not turn into another al Mualim. Remember the Creed, Brother.”

Altair’s eyes were too bright. Fever. But the man did not look sick. He looked purposeful, driven, aware of a truth that none of the others knew, not even the new Master.

“I know it, Malik. That is why the new Master does not have the Piece of Eden. I do.” Mailk had long suspected something like this: that Altair had hidden the treasure in his rooms or if not there then in the garden or perhaps the mountain forests. Wherever it was, no one, not even Malik, had seen it for over a year. Altair had emerged from his delirium and then retreated to battle the ball, to seek its secrets, to leech the knowledge of how to kill it. That was what many thought. Now it appeared that Altair had been doing more or exactly the opposite of that noble intention ascribed to him by many a Brother. He had been like a recluse, mind to devilish mind with the treasure. Malik had seen the strain on his face and figure that Altair tried to conceal. He had told him nothing. Not even under interrogation. Malik had thought their friendship dead again before it had even come up from the ashes.

“He is a weak man, imposed by outsiders. He does not understand what we’ve been through. What al Mualim had done. He is a fanatic! Reducing everything to black and white.” Altair’s hand hit the parapet hard. He’d not shown so much emotion since that day in Jerusalem when he’d apologised to Malik for a crime he’d not really done. The imperturbable exterior that Malik had hated once but now had come to realise was a truth was gone for the moment. He saw the pain, the raw wounds that had never healed and that the Piece of Eden kept bleeding. Suddenly Malik was worried for Altair’s sanity as never before.

”Altair,” he said urgently. Altair’s eyes found him again. “Do not let others hear you speak so. He only seeks a chance, a reason, to get rid of you. He thinks to use the Piece of Eden… he thinks it has power. He would torture you – Abbas would do it personally, he has hated you for years. Do not give them the excuse, Altair.”

He knew he sounded like a mother hen, like a preacher. But then he was a Rafiq – his men’s lives mattered most to him, even above his own. Ali was dead already. Yusuf had left, unwilling to serve a new Master he could not respect. Azzam and Muhammad…. He dragged his mind back to the tower from those men he’d never see again. One year. Of devastation. Of keeping low, of dissembling before the man who had no right to even breathe, let alone run the Brotherhood. Gall rose in his throat. And Malik quickly stifled it. Cool heads won the day. Impulsive decisions led nowhere.

Altair appeared not to have heard him. His face had that stubborn cast that Malik knew from experience meant the words had washed right over his head. That pigheadedness had been easy to hate before when the Master Assassin had behaved more like a brawny boy than a man with responsibilities. Malik was aware acutely that this same strong mindedness now kept them all alive. If the Piece of Eden ever gained the upper hand…

“Nothing is True… Everything is Permitted,” Altair mused, looking out over the garden and the snowy wooded peaks. “The truth is, he had to die. The truth is, I am surprised the Brothers have not judged me and cast me out for raising my hand on the one man capable of ending this pointless Crusade, this war that has cost millions. The truth is… I should be dead.” His gaze held Malik’s now. “He had many more years of skill. Of knowledge. Yet I think..” He hesitated, stare fixed on the stump of his ring finger. “I think he wanted… for it to end.”

Malik’s eyebrow rose. “’IT’?”

Impatience in Altair’s voice now, his whole face flashing with annoyance at Malik’s slow comprehension. “He knew what that silver ball was doing to him. At the end, down there,” his head jerked beyond the tower to the garden and the now-clean pond. “That thing had taken his convictions and turned them about, distorted them like water breaks sunlight. The only way to break its hold on his mind that he could see or think of was to die. But unleashing the power of the Piece of Eden wiped the minds of all here: there was none left to stand up to him.” His hand closed on the hilt of his sabre, ever at his side. He rubbed its golden smoothness. “Except me. The one who he’d tried to bring around to his way of thinking and could not. His best student.” His jaw clenched painfully. Malik could almost hear the teeth grind. “Me.” Altair swallowed, tight faced.

“How do you know all this? Did he write it in his journal?” If Altair’s conjectures were correct and the Master had not lied in the journal he’d kept as had his associates, the Templars, then the world had to be rid of the Piece of Eden and the dangerous knowledge it contained. Power over minds. Probably the greatest power there was. Mind controlled the body. Influence a man’s thoughts and you controlled his body – you could make him do anything.

“He did not have to. The ball showed me.”

“How do you know you can trust it? You just said it takes over your mind, makes its designs your own, leaving you a shell of yourself.”

“I do not. But it feels right. A gut feeling.”

Intuition. An Assassin’s greatest asset if the facts and the situation did not make sense. Malik had learned to believe his own long ago. But the rational part of him, the logical self, could not let this assertion go without protest.

“Based on the evidence I have, Brother, the Piece should be destroyed. It is simply too insidious, too dangerous in the wrong hands. Its power is too great, too infinite for us to know. The new Master wants it, badly. You know what uses he’d put it to.”

“It cannot be destroyed,” Altair rejoined, low, uncertain. It was frightening to see the once-confident cocky even Altair so unsure. The Brotherhood teetered on the brink of disaster every day and if one of its bedrocks was unstable… “I can learn from it, use its own powers against it.”

Malik grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him sharply to face him. “That is what al Mualim thought too!” He said angrily. “His mind was stronger than yours, Altair. AND HE FELL!! Will you always bite off more than you can chew? Do you feel so foolhardy that you disregard the rest of the Brothers? I thought you had fought for them. I saw your pain when you realised what you’d done. Have you forgotten it? Has that thing already poisoned your mind, Altair? Do you still believe yourself to be incorruptible? Are you still so arrogant?”


Altair weathered the onslaught of words, saying nothing in return. There was nothing to say. Malik was right. But he KNEW. He KNEW that what he was doing, contending with the Piece of Eden, mind to mind, was right, was the only way to go, nightmares or none, guilt or none, peace or none. How else were they to know a way to destroy that thing but to study it, seek out its secrets, its founts of knowledge? How could Malik be so blind in his concern for his Brother’s welfare?
“Brother, it is right to do this. Without knowledge learned we cannot know how to defeat the Piece of Eden. You must see that.”

Malik’s face took on an impatient expression Altair knew so well from a year ago. He’d come here today to meditate, to reflect, to organise what he had gained from the ball the hard way. His mind felt sandy – as if the Piece had poured some toxic poison to dissolve the essence of his self. He felt tired, exhausted. His sleep brought him no rest. It was torment, especially now, today – one year since he’d laid the one man who’d loved him low. Patricide. That’s what it was. Pure and simple. The Sunnis believed that such was a sin against Allah. He was a sinner then. But somehow it did not feel so bad. He knew it had been wrong but it had been the only way. No matter what the new Master would do to him, he had seen and lived through worse. Still lived it, nightly.

He felt no closer to unravelling the ball’s knowledge than he’d been then when it had taken him to that nothing-space between worlds of waking and dreams. It played with him like cat with a mouse. He had faced it alone, unwilling to drag another soul into it – better he was the one to suffer its exquisite pains than let some friend and Brother do so. The less knew about the Piece the better. But lately it had begun to grow on him. He feared his dreams now. The ball had taken him places, had shown him unnerving things. To continue solitary was a danger, an arrogance of the kind he’d displayed at Solomon’s Temple. He could use a friend.

“Malik, I have a favour to ask.” He saw Malik’s eyes smouldering with resentment at his obtuseness. His tone was soft now but firm. “I would…” He found he had to explain what the ball did to him. He had never been an introspective kind – he acted on instinct, questioned later once all the facts were his. “When I… communicate with Piece, I go away.” Malik’s face was disbelieving.

“’Go away’? Where?” Genuine worry writ large in the words. Worry for Altair’s sanity, the Master Assassin concluded.

“I don’t know… But I don’t think I am present here anymore. In this world.” He spoke quickly. “That is why I need your help, Malik.” He turned away, unable to bear up under the brotherly concern in Malik’s sharp eyes. He leaned on the parapet, head down, staring through the stone. “Be with me.”

Silence fell between them as Malik pondered this request. Altair could almost read his thought: if he refused, Altair would go at it alone again and end up insane; if he agreed then he’d find out where the Piece was kept and perhaps prevent the Brotherhood from dissolution by dint of ensuring that Altair was not permanently damaged by his communication with the ball. Duty: for Malik that was his life. Perhaps his greatest failure: he’d given so much to his duty as both Rafiq and Brother that he’d forgotten he was a man. Kadar’s death had been a brutal reminder of his humanity. Altair still remembered the angry spitting blood-covered Malik in al Mualim’s study when he’d brought back the treasure while Altair had confessed his failure. They had both learned better over that summer. They had both rediscovered the humanity they’d feared lost.

A year had passed. A wearying, dragging year for the Master Assassin. He was forced to obey a man he could never respect, a man who hid behind rules and traditions, without regard to the changing world outside. He was shackled by norms and rules established by the founder of the Assassins who did not want this brittle unbending obedience. The Creed was about adaptability, changing with the times. But men wanted stability – it was safer, more predictable in this time of war. So they kept to the old traditions, unwilling to face the world that moved on.
But Altair had faced change, and then some. Was still battling it, every night in his thoughts and increasingly in the day time. He could feel that thing singing even from all this distance. He had buried the Piece of Eden in a little pit dug under the ripped roots of a pine. He took a different path to it every day – he had not marked the place at all but had memorised the different needle patterns and the bark tone to remind him of the right tree. He knew the new Master spied on him, wanted to know where the Master Assassin disappeared off to at odd times. No doubt this conversation was observed and listened to as well. Unless the spies had suffered apoplexy on the long way up – the tower was after all a tall one, the staircase winding and apt to bring on dizziness. With a grim glee he thought, Let them spy, let them whisper. They’re shackled. They can’t get rid of me – or the whole Brotherhood would go up in arms against them. There was been enough blood shed inside these walls. I would not cause more by a stupid action.

“Will you help me, Brother? In times like these we have to stick together. Keep the Brotherhood from disintegrating. As Rafiq, I think you’d be interested in maintaining cohesion.”

Malik looked away, face bitter. Altair knew why: he was no longer a Rafiq of Jerusalem. A new one had been installed there. A sycophantic spy of the new Master. He was effective at gathering information, just as Malik had been. But he concealed the bad news – he only told the man in charge what he wanted to hear. Such ignorance led to catastrophic mistakes. So far none had occurred – a miracle in itself – but both men on the tower top knew it was only a matter of time. The Assassins’ reputation would suffer – they might not be as feared anymore. And once the people and the rulers lost that apprehension, they’d be destroyed. That knowledge did not make either of them happy.

“I will,” Malik said heavily, lips compressed in a line. “If for no other reason than to be doing something instead of cooling my heels in his presence all the time like a lap dog that is indulged but not needed.”

The two of them never called the Master of Masyaf by his name between themselves, or even by title. To them and to a few others he was “the new Master”, a not-so subtle distinction between them and the new comers now filling the important positions of power in the Brotherhood. The new guard and the old one were like two cats in a sack, growling and lashing their tails but not clawing yet. That would begin soon. Begin with Malik helping him to retain his hold on reality.

“Mischief. Just like the old times,” Altair smiled slightly. After a moment Malik replied in kind. Altair of a sudden felt as if a mountain had fallen off his shoulders. To have his friend by his side again, no longer estranged, had not been possible a year ago. Then he had thought they’d drifted too far apart. And after Kadar’s death it had not looked as if they would ever even look at each other again, let alone plot treason under a Master’s nose. But time changed many things, including reasons and opinions and beliefs. Events happened, bringing with them an influence born of their context, the ideas and rules underlying the conduct of the participants.
“Master of Mischief.” Malik was grinning now.

“Rafiq of Reason.” Altair clapped him on the shoulder.

“Come down from here, Eagle,” Malik cajoled with his old wit. “You’re apt to freeze your tail feathers in this cold. I for one don’t want to part company with my remaining talons. I still have a use for them.”

Altair snorted quiet laughter. Yes, just like the time they’d been novices together, up at night, plotting to singe the Novices Master’s voluble moustache. They’d been switched right well for it but been unrepentant. The secret he and Malik would keep now was more dangerous than a childhood prank but the excitement of it drove his gloom away for a while. Better with a friend than without.

“You call those talons, o my brother of Reason?” Altair pretended to think on it. “They look more like a bedraggled cat’s claws to me after its fur’s been singed off.”

Malik chortled. Altair looked away, shoulders shaking in laughter. Their eyes met in memory and they were off again. Still laughing they made for the stairs where they met a very startled Abbas right around the first turn in the stair. He’d obviously been listening: his black beady eyes were shining with chagrin. No doubt he’d hoped to hear more of their talk and report to the new Master of their words. But he would not tell him anything of importance. Two Brothers meeting and sharing a joke was hardly important news.

“What are you doing here, Abbas? I thought you’d be busy polishing your new master’s boots,” Malik said cuttingly. Abbas flushed a dull red, stared angrily at them and then stomped off down the stairs, without a word.

“Dangerous cur. Rabid,” Altair spat.

“The world holds many like him,” Malik replied warningly. “You can’t find them all. Gathering them in one place is a good idea but what place could hold them all? Or even would?”

Altair shook his head. Abbas was the least of his problems. A year had not changed him at all. Abbas was unchangeable: cunning like a fox, cowardly like a hyena. A survivor by virtue of reading the currents right, where power flowed, where advantage reigned. Killing him was like stepping on an insect: pointless but necessary. Altair did not want to be the one to do it. Such a scoundrel was unworthy of his blade in his gut.

“Come,” he said, walking down the same way Abbas had gone, good mood evaporated. “Let’s visit the training ring. There is a promising novice I want to show you.”

He knew Malik was not fooled by his change of subject. The man was too sharp for that. But he fell for it all the same.

“Really? Is it the one with the impertinent swagger and a good left arm?”

“Indeed it is. Ishamel by name. I’d say his Hidden Blade would be on his right arm – his left moves the sabre and delivers punches faster than an eye blink.”

Malik sniffed at him. “That’s big praise, coming from you.”

Altair punched him on the shoulder, pushing him to the wall. “Cat get your tongue.” He smiled, all teeth. Malik gathered his dignity and marched off down the stairs. But not before Altair saw his answering mischievous expression. Some things indeed were possible in a year’s time. He’d not seen Malik smile in years. To get two out of him was a feat. Sighing in contentment Altair hurried after his Brother of many years as the sun set down finally on yet another day in Masyaf.


The garden dressed in shade again as if closing its eyes in sleep. Its plants still remembered the blood, the earth had soaked it up but the old trees still carried the stains, brown and dirty with age. The predatory birds cried their last cry to the sky, a blood curdling shout of triumph, as one of their own prepared for yet another ordeal in the night but not alone this time, for time changes things. And one year can change a man’s life or that of his friend. The guilt, the sadness, the anger, the pride – all can morph into one another or melt away. The two men in an austere bed chamber that night knew the truth of that, as one sat guard on his friend’s dreams and wondered what a year from now would bring. But the sleeping Assassin could for the first time in months rest and sleep, allow his mind to drift to his Spirit, to prowl the night skies, seeking answers that only his Master could have understood.