Sofia nodded, then said, lightly, “And the mandate for the menacing hoods-was that Altair’s idea as well?”
Ezio laughed softly.
“You mentioned a Creed, earlier,” Sofia went on. “What is it?”
Ezio paused. “Altair made a great… study, throughout the latter years of his long life, of certain… codes, which were vouchsafed him. I remember one passage of his writings by heart. Shall I tell you it?”
“Please.”
“Altair wrote: Over time, any sentence uttered long and loud enough, becomes fixed. Provided, of course, that you can outlast the dissent and silence your opponents. But should you succeed, and remove all challengers, then what remains? Truth! Is it truth in some objective sense? No. But how does one ever achieve an objective point of view? The answer is that one doesn’t. It’s literally, physically impossible. Too many variables. Too many fields and formulae to consider. The Socratic method understood this. It provided for an asymptotic approach to truth. The line never meets the curve at any finite point. But the very definition of the asymptote implies an infinite struggle. We inch closer and closer to a revelation, but never reach it. Not ever… And so I have realized that, as long as the Templars exist, they will attempt to bend reality to their will. They recognize that there is no such thing as an absolute truth, or, if there is, we are hopelessly underequipped to recognize it. And so, in its place, they seek to create their own explanation. It is the guiding principle of what they call their New World Order: to reshape existence in their ‘own’ image. It’s not about artifacts. It’s not about men. These are merely tools. It’s about concepts. Clever of them, for how does one wage war against a concept? It is the perfect weapon. It lacks a physical form yet can alter the world around us in numerous, often violent, ways. You cannot kill a Creed. Even if you kill all its adherents, destroy all its writings-that provides a reprieve at best. Someday, someday, we shall rediscover it. Reinvent it. I believe that even we, the Assassins, have simply rediscovered an Order that predates the Old Man of the Mountain… All knowledge is a chimera. It all comes back to time. Infinite. Unstoppable. It begs the question, what hope is there? My answer is this: We must reach a place where that question is no longer relevant. The struggle itself is asymptotic. Always approaching a resolution but never reaching it. The best we can hope for is to smooth the line a bit. Bring about stability and peace, however temporary. And understand, Reader, it will always and forever be only temporary. For as long as we continue to reproduce, we will give rise to doubters and challengers. Men who will rise up against the status quo for no other reason, sometimes, than that they have nothing better to do. It is Man’s nature to disagree. War is but one of the many ways in which we do so. I think many have yet to understand our Creed. But such is the process. To be mystified. To be frustrated. To be educated. To be enlightened. And then at last, to understand. To be at peace.”
Ezio fell silent. Then he said: “Does that make sense?”
“ Grazie. Yes, it does.” She gazed at him as he stood, lost in thought, his eyes on the fortress. “Do you regret your decision? To live as an Assassin for so long?”
He sighed. “I do not remember making any decision. This life-it chose me.”
“I see,” she replied, dropping her eyes to the ground.
“For three decades I have served the memory of my father and my brothers, and fought for those who have suffered the pain of injustice. I do not regret those years, but now-” He took a deep breath, as if some force greater than himself had released him from its grip, and he moved his gaze from the castle to the eagle, still soaring, soaring. “Now it is time to live for myself, and let them go. To let go of all of this.”
She took his hand. “Then let go, Ezio. Let go. You will not fall far.”
SEVENTY-FOUR
It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at the outer bailey gate. It stood open, and already, climbing plants were weaving their way around its pillars. The winch mechanisms above were festooned with creepers. They crossed to the inner bailey and there, too, the gates were open, and within, the courtyard showed signs of a hasty departure. A half-laden, abandoned supply wagon stood near a huge, dead plane tree under which a broken stone bench rested.
Ezio led the way into the keep and down a staircase into the bowels of the castle, carrying a torch to light them as he led the way down a series of dismal corridors, until, at last, they stood before a massive stone door made of some smooth, green stone. Its surface was broken by five slots, arranged in a semicircle at shoulder height.
Ezio put down his pack and from it produced the five keys.
He weighed the first one in his hand. “The end of the road,” he said, as much to himself as to Sofia.
“Not quite,” said Sofia. “First, we have to discover how to open the door.”
Ezio studied the keys and the slots into which they must fit. Symbols surrounding the slots gave him his first clue.
“They must-somehow-match the symbols on the keys,” he said, thoughtfully. “I know that Altair would have taken every precaution to safeguard this archive-there must be a sequence. If I fail to get that right, I fear the door may remain locked forever.”
“What do you hope to find behind it?” Sofia sounded breathless, almost-awed.
Ezio’s own voice had sunk to a whisper, though there was no one but her to hear him. “Knowledge, above all else. Altair was a profound man and a prolific writer. He built this place as a repository for all his wisdom.” He looked at her. “I know that he saw many things in his life and learned many secrets, both troubling and deep. He acquired such knowledge as would drive lesser men to despair.”
“Then is it wise to tap into it?”
“I am worried, it is true. But then”-he cracked a smile-“I am not, as you should know by now, a lesser man.”
“Ezio-always the joker.” Sofia smiled back, relieved that the tension had been broken.
He placed the torch he held in a sconce, where it gave them both enough illumination to read by. But he noticed that the symbols on the door had begun to glow with an indefinable light, scarcely perceptible, but clear, and that the keys themselves glowed, seemingly in response. “Have a careful look at the symbols on these keys with me. Try to describe them out loud as I look at the symbols on the door.”
She put on her glasses and took the first of the keys he gave her. As she spoke, he studied the markings on the door closely.
Then he gave a gasp of recognition. “Of course. Altair spent much time in the East, and gained much wisdom there.” He paused. “The Chaldeans!”
“You mean-this might have something to do with the stars?”
“Yes-the constellations. Altair traveled in Mesopotamia, where the Chaldeans lived-”
“Yes, but they lived two thousand years ago. We have books-Herodotus, Diodoros Siculus-that tell us they were great astronomers, but no detailed knowledge of their work.”
“Altair had-and he has passed it on here, encoded. We must apply our weak knowledge of the stars to theirs.”
“That is impossible! We all know that they managed to calculate the length of a solar year to within four minutes, and that’s pretty accurate, but how they did it is another matter.”
“They cared about the constellations and the movement of the heavenly bodies through the sky. They thought, by them, they could predict the future. They built great observatories-”
“That is pure hearsay!”
“It’s all we have to go on, and look-look here. Don’t you recognize that?”
She looked at a symbol engraved on one of the keys.
“He’s made it deliberately obscure-but isn’t that”-Ezio pointed-“the constellation of Leo?”