Renaissance

He shook off his heavy outer robe and stood in his tunic and hose. A fat, but compact and powerful body, over which little bolts of lightning raced - gained from the power of the Staff. And he stepped forward and landed the first blow - a vicious uppercut to Ezio's jaw that sent him reeling. 'Why couldn't your father leave well enough alone?' asked Rodrigo sorrowfully as he raised his boot to kick Ezio hard in the gut. 'He just had to keep pursuing it, though. And you're just like him. All you Assassins are like mosquitoes to be swatted. I wish to God that idiot Alberti had been able to hang you along with your kinsmen twenty-seven years ago.'

'The evil resides not with us but with you, the Templars,' rejoined Ezio, spitting out a tooth. You thought the people -ordinary, decent folk - were yours to play with, to do with as you pleased.'

'But my dear fellow,' said Rodrigo, getting a body-blow in under Ezio's ribs, 'that is what they are there for. Scum to be ruled and used. Always were, always will be.'

'Stand off,' panted Ezio. 'This fight is immaterial. A more vital one awaits us. But tell me first, what do you even want with the Vault that lies beyond that wall? Don't you already have all the power you could possibly need?'

Rodrigo looked surprised. 'Don't you know what lies within? Hasn't the great and powerful Order of the Assassins figured it out?'

His torvid tone stopped Ezio in his tracks. 'What are you talking about?'

Rodrigo's eyes glittered. 'It's God! It's God who dwells within the Vault!'

Ezio was too astonished to reply immediately. He knew that he was dealing with a dangerous madman. 'Listen, do you really expect me to believe that God lives beneath the Vatican?'

'Well, isn't that a slightly more logical location than a kingdom on a cloud? - Surrounded by singing angels and cherubim? All that makes for a lovely image, but the truth is far more interesting.'

'And what does God do down here?'

'He waits to be set free.'

Ezio took a breath. 'Let's say I believe you - what do you think He'll do if you manage to open that door?'

Rodrigo smiled. 'I don't care. It certainly isn't His approval I'm after - just His power!'

'And do you think He'll give it up?'

'Whatever lies behind that wall won't be able to resist the combined strength of the Staff and the Apple.' Rodrigo paused. 'They were made for felling gods - whatever religion they belong to.'

'But the Lord our God is meant to be all-knowing. All-powerful. Do you really think a couple of ancient relics can harm him?'

Rodrigo gave a superior smile. 'You know nothing, boy. You take your image of the Creator from an old book - a book, mark you, written by men.'

'But you are the Pope! How can you dismiss Christianity's central text?'

Rodrigo laughed. 'Are you really so naive? I became Pope because the position gave me access. It gave me power ! Do you think I believed a single goddamned word of that ridiculous Book? It's all lies and superstition. Just like every other religious tract that's been written since people learned how to put pen to paper!'

'There are those who would kill you for saying that.'

'Perhaps. But the thought wouldn't disturb my sleep.' He paused. 'Ezio, we Templars understand humanity, and that is why we hold it in such contempt!'

Ezio was speechless, but he continued to listen to the Pope's ranting.

'When my work here is finished,' Rodrigo went on, 'I think my first order of business will be dismantling the Church, so that men and women may finally be forced to assume responsibility for their actions, and at last be properly judged!' His face became beatific. 'It will be a thing of beauty, the new Templar world - governed by Reason and Order.'

'How can you speak of reason and order,' interrupted Ezio, 'when your entire life has been governed by violence and immorality?'

'Oh, I know I am an imperfect being, Ezio,' simpered the Pope. 'And I do not pretend otherwise. But, you see, there is no prize awarded for

morality. You take what you can get and hold on tight to it - by any means necessary. After all,' he spread his hands, 'you only live once!'

'If everyone lived by your Code,' said Ezio, aghast, 'the entire world would be consumed by madness.'

'Exactly! And as if it hadn't been already!' Rodrigo jabbed a finger at him. 'Did you sleep through your history lessons? Only a few hundred years ago or so our ancestors lived in muck and mire, consumed with ignorance and religious fervour - jumping at shadows, afraid of everything.'

'But we have long since emerged from that and become both wiser and stronger.'

Rodrigo laughed again. 'What a pleasant dream you have! But look around you. You have lived the reality yourself. The bloodshed. The violence. The gulf between the rich and the poor - and that is only growing wider.' He fixed his eyes on Ezio's. 'There will never be parity. I've made my peace with that. You should, too.'

'Never! The Assassins will always fight for the betterment of humanity. It may ultimately be unattainable, a Utopia, a heaven on earth, but with every day that the fight for it continues, we move forwards out of the swamp.'

Rodrigo sighed. 'Sancta simplicitas! You'll forgive me if I've grown tired of waiting for humanity to wake up. I am old, I've seen a lot, and now I've only so many years to live.' A thought struck him and he cackled evilly. 'Though who knows? Perhaps the Vault will change that, eh?'

But suddenly the Apple began to glow, brighter and brighter, until its light filled the room, blinding them. The Pope fell to his knees. Shielding his eyes, Ezio saw that the image of the map from the Codex was being projected on the wall which was dotted with holes. He stepped forward and grasped the Papal Staff.

'No!' cried Rodrigo, his claw-like hands futilely gripping the air. 'You can't! You can't ! It is my destiny. Mine! I am the Prophet!'

In a terrifying moment of clear truth, Ezio realized that his fellow Assassins, so long ago in Venice, had seen what he himself had rejected. The Prophet was indeed there, in that room, and about to fulfil his destiny. He looked at Rodrigo, almost in pity. 'You never were the Prophet,' he said. 'You poor, deluded soul.'

The Pope sank back, old and gross and pathetic. Then he spoke with resignation. 'The price of failure is death. Give me at least that dignity.'

Ezio looked at him and shook his head. 'No, old fool. Killing you won't bring my father back. Or Federico. Or Petruccio. Or any of the others who have died, either opposing you, or in your impotent service. And for myself, I am done with killing.' He gazed into the Pope's eyes, and they seemed milky now, and afraid, and ancient; no longer the glittering gimlets of his foe. 'Nothing is true,' said Ezio. 'Everything is permitted. It is time for you to find your own peace.'

He turned from Rodrigo and held the Staff up to the wall, pressing its tip into a sequence of the holes spread across it, as the projected map showed him.

And, as he did so, the outline of a great door appeared.

Which, as Ezio touched the final hole, opened.

It revealed a broad passageway, with glass walls, inset with ancient sculptures in stone, marble and bronze, and many chambers filled with sarcophagi, each marked with Runic letters, which Ezio found himself able to read - they were the names of the ancient gods of Rome, but they were all firmly sealed.

As he passed along the passageway, Ezio was struck by the unfamiliarity of the architecture and the decoration, which seemed to be a strange mixture of the very ancient, of the style of his own time, and of shapes and forms he did not recognize, but which his instinct suggested might belong to a distant future. Along the walls there were carved reliefs of ancient events, seeming not only to show the evolution of Man, but the Force which guided it.

Many of the shapes depicted seemed human to Ezio, though in forms and clothing he could not recognize. And he saw other forms, and did not know if they were sculpted, or painted, or part of the ether through which he passed - a forest falling into the sea, apes, apples, croziers, men and women, a shroud, a sword, pyramids and colossi, ziggurats and juggernauts, ships that swam underwater, weird shining screens which seemed to convey all knowledge, all communication.