He stood back and addressed his troops: “Our Mentor is returned!”
The soldiers sheathed their drawn weapons and raised their hoods. Joining forces with Altair’s existing group of loyal Assassins, they made their way toward the dark-towered keep of Masyaf.
FIFTY-SIX
But hardly were they within the confines of the inner bailey than Abbas himself appeared, behind a detachment of rogue Assassins. Abbas, recognizable still, but an old man, too, with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks-a haunted, frightened, driven man.
“Kill him!” bellowed Abbas. “Kill him now!”
His men hesitated.
“What are you waiting for?” Abbas screamed at them, his voice cracking as it strained.
But they were frozen with indecision, looking at their fellows standing against them and at each other.
“You fools! He has bewitched you!”
Still nothing. Abbas looked at them, spat, and disappeared within the keep.
There was still a standoff, as Assassin confronted Assassin. In the tense silence, Altair raised his left hand-the one maimed at his initiation into the Brotherhood.
“There is no witchcraft here,” he said simply. “Nor sorcery. Do as your conscience bids. But death has stalked here too long. And we have too many real enemies-we can’t afford to turn against each other.”
One of Abbas’s reluctant defenders doffed her cowl and stepped forward, kneeling before Altair. “Mentor,” she said.
Another quickly joined her. “Welcome home,” she added.
Then a third: “I fight for you. For the Order.”
The others quickly followed the example of the three women Assassins, greeting Altair as a long-lost brother, embracing their former opponents in fellowship again. Only a handful still spat insults and retreated after Abbas into the keep.
Altair, at the head of his troop, led the way into the keep itself. They stopped in the great hall, looking up to where Abbas stood at the head of the central staircase. He was flanked by rogue Assassins loyal to him, and spearmen and archers ranged the gallery.
Altair regarded them calmly. Under his gaze, the rogue Assassins wavered. But they did not break.
“Tell your men to stand down, Abbas,” he commanded.
“Never! I am defending Masyaf! Would you not do the same?”
“Abbas, you corrupted everything we stand for and lost everything we gained. All of it sacrificed on the altar of your own spite.”
“As you,” Abbas spat back. “You have wasted your life staring into that accursed Apple, dreaming only of your own glory.”
Altair took a step forward. As he did so, two of Abbas’s spearmen stepped forward, brandishing their arms.
“Abbas-it is true that I have learned many things from the Apple. About life and death, and about the past and the future.” He paused. “I regret this, my old comrade, but I see that I have no choice but to demonstrate to you one of the things I have learned. Nothing else will stop you, I see. And you will never change now and see the light that is still available to you.”
“Kill the traitors!” Abbas shouted in reply. “Kill every one of them and throw their bodies onto the dunghill!”
Abbas’s men bristled, but held off their attack. Altair knew that there was no turning back now. He raised his gun arm, unleashed the pistol from its harness, and, as it sprang into his grip, aimed and fired at the man who, seven decades earlier, had, for a short time, been his best friend.
Abbas staggered under the blow of the ball as it struck him, a look of disbelief and surprise on his wizened features. He gasped and swayed, reaching out wildly for support, but no one came to his aid.
And then he fell, crashing over and over down the long stone staircase, to come to rest at Altair’s feet. His legs had broken in the fall and stuck out at crazy angles from his body.
But he was not dead. Not yet. He managed to raise himself painfully, high enough to hold his head up, and look Altair in the eye.
“I can never forgive you, Altair,” he managed to croak. “For the lies you told about my family, my father. For the humiliation I suffered.”
Altair looked down at him, but there was only regret in his eyes. “They were not lies, Abbas. I was ten years old when your father came to my room, to see me. He was in tears, begging to be forgiven for betraying my family.” Altair paused. “Then he cut his own throat.”
Abbas held his enemy’s eye but did not speak. The pain in his face was that of a man confronting a truth he could not bear.
“I watched his life ebb away at my feet,” Altair went on. “I shall never forget that image.”
Abbas moaned in agony. “No!”
“But he was not a coward, Abbas. He reclaimed his honor.”
Abbas knew he had not much longer to live. The light in his eyes was already fading as he said: “I hope there is another life after this. At least then I shall see him, and know the truth of his final days…”
He coughed, the movement racking his body, and when his breath came again as he strove to speak, the rattle was already in it. But when he found his voice, it was firm, and it was unrepentant.
“And when it is your time, O Altair, then, then we will find you. And then there will be no doubts.”
Abbas’s arms collapsed, and his body slumped to the stone floor.
Altair stood over him in the silence that surrounded them, his head bowed. There was no movement but that of the shadows stirred by the flickering torchlight.
FIFTY-SEVEN
When Ezio came to himself, he feared that the dawn would have broken, but he saw only the palest shades of red in the sky to the east, and the sun had not yet even breached the low brown hills of Asia, which lay in the distance beyond the city.
Weary, worn-out by his experience, he made his way first to the Assassins’ headquarters, to give the key into the safekeeping of Azize. Then, his legs aching under him, he made his way almost instinctively to Sofia’s shop. It would be early still, but he’d ring the bell until she awoke in her apartment above it, and he hoped she’d be pleased to see him-or at least, the new addition to her library. But he was frankly too tired to care whether she’d be excited or not. He just wanted to lie down and sleep. Later on, he knew, he had a rendezvous with Yusuf at the Spice Market, and he had to be fresh for that.
He was also impatient for news of his ship-the one that would take him to Mersin, from whence he’d journey north into Cappadocia. And that journey, he knew, would require all the strength he could summon up.
The Spice Market was already crowded by the time Ezio reached it, though he had contented himself with a mere two hours’ rest. Ezio shouldered his way through the people milling around the stalls until, a few yards ahead of him, he saw a thief in the act of grabbing a large, stiff bag of spices, giving the elderly trader who tried to stop him a vicious shove as he made his getaway.
By luck, the thief ran in Ezio’s direction, snaking his way through the mob with extraordinary agility. But as he came abreast of Ezio, the Assassin tripped him up neatly with his hookblade. The thief dropped the sack as he fell and glared up at Ezio, but one look from his attacker made him drop any thought of retaliation, and, picking himself up, he vanished into the crowd as fast as a rat into its hole.
“Thank you, efendim,” said the grateful trader, as Ezio handed his bag back to him. “Saffron. You have spared me a great loss. Perhaps you will accept…?”
But Ezio had spotted Yusuf in the crowd, and, after shaking his head and smiling briefly at the trader, he made his way over to his lieutenant.
“What news?” he said as he reached him.
“We have had word-very discreetly-that your ship is ready to sail,” said Yusuf. “I did not know that you planned to leave us.”
“Is nothing I do a secret?” Ezio answered, laughing lightly but glad to hear that Suleiman had kept his word.