“What the hell was that?” he said.
“I think,” Owen said, “that was the fear prong. I … couldn’t fight it.”
“We have to try,” Javier said, and he stumbled forward, still clutching his knife, out of the chamber and down the narrow passage, the light of dawn visible through the opening.
Outside, Isaiah stood triumphant on the mountain slope. Everyone around him knelt or lay on the ground, consumed by their own worst fears, trapped in their personal hells. Isaiah surveyed them with an expression of ultimate satisfaction, his mouth set in a hard smile.
Javier raised his knife once more to throw, but his parents stepped into view again, between his blade and its target. They walked toward Javier, glaring, wagging their fingers and spewing vile insults that he covered his ears against.
But over them, Javier heard a scream, and looked up to see Yanmei rushing at Isaiah, tears streaming from her eyes, her hidden blade ready. But Javier could see her attack was desperate. It lacked control. Isaiah stepped easily aside and thrust the point of his dagger, the Piece of Eden, up into her stomach. She screamed again, and he tossed her aside.
“Listen to me!” he bellowed. “I am no longer a Templar! I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. All of you who once served the Order now serve me, and all others shall perish! Come!”
He turned and strode down the hill, and after he’d walked some yards on, the Templar agents all dragged themselves to their feet and followed after him. Javier managed to raise himself and rush to Yanmei’s side.
She winced and clutched her stomach where she bled. So much blood. Too much. Javier used his own hands to put pressure on the wound as Griffin staggered over to them.
“Yanmei,” he said.
She looked up at him. “He showed me something I’d buried a long time ago.”
“You were the only one who got close,” Griffin said.
She coughed. “Not close enough.”
The others had drawn nearer, standing around the Assassins, and Javier could see they all suffered the aftershocks of their own fears, just as he did, even as they worried about Yanmei. Monroe’s face had lost all color.
“What can we do?” Grace asked.
“We need to get her out of here,” Griffin said.
“How?” David asked.
“One of the helicopters. Help me carry her.”
Griffin moved to Yanmei’s shoulders, and the others stepped in to take her arms and her legs, while Javier kept pressure on her stomach. They lifted her together and shuffled along together down the mountain.
The sun rose above the peaks and valleys to the east, throwing its light on the Abstergo camp, and Javier could see the vehicle convoy moving away, Isaiah with his army. But Javier despaired when he saw and heard both helicopters also flying away with the ground troops.
“Stay with us,” Griffin said, looking down. “Yanmei, stay with us.”
But her eyes had mostly closed, her eyelids fluttering.
“Put her down,” Griffin said. “Put her down, and keep pressure on that wound.”
They gently set her limp body on the ground, and Javier leaned into her, while Griffin shook her gently.
“Yanmei, stay with me. Come on, you have to fight.”
But Javier could sense that a change had taken place beneath his bloody hands. Her chest no longer expanded with her breathing. She no longer winced or moved. Even the bleeding seemed to have slowed to a stop. She was gone.
“Damn,” Griffin said, eyes closed, digging his knuckles into the ground.
Natalya started to cry, and Javier felt tears coming to his own eyes. Owen and Grace and Monroe hadn’t really known Yanmei, but they stood by, somber and silent, and they all remained that way for some time.
Eventually, Griffin rose to his feet and lifted her body by himself, cradling her in his arms. He resumed his march down the hill, and Javier and the others followed him, much slower now. When they reached the valley floor, they trudged toward the Templar camp, now abandoned. Griffin set Yanmei down again, and looked around.
“I need to find a way to reach Gavin. Or at least the rest of Yanmei’s cell.”
“This is my fault,” Natalya said. “If I had just told you where the Piece of Eden was—”
“Stop that,” Griffin said. “This is war, and war takes lives. I happen to know Yanmei respected you for your principles. She wouldn’t blame you. She would blame Isaiah, and so do I. We can’t forget who the real enemy is.”
“I agree with Griffin,” Monroe said. “This is not your fault.”
“What did he mean?” Javier asked. “Isaiah said he wasn’t a Templar anymore.”
“I don’t know,” Griffin said. “One problem at a time.”
He walked over to one of the tents, poked his head inside, and then walked to the next, most likely looking for something he could use to radio or connect with the outside world. Javier pulled Owen aside.
“Are you okay?”
Owen nodded, but it wasn’t convincing, and Javier knew exactly what the dagger had shown his friend.
“It wasn’t any more real than Isaiah’s fake simulation,” he said. “You have to put it out of your mind. Focus on finding out the truth.”
Owen nodded. “What did you see?”
“My parents,” Javier said. “They …” But he broke off, unable to finish.
Owen put an arm around his shoulder. “Never mind. Like you said, it’s not real.”
Javier looked over at the others. Grace and David huddled close together, and Natalya stood next to Monroe. “I wonder what they saw.”
“Probably better not to ask.”
Javier thought that was probably true. He and Owen walked back over toward them, but in that moment the thumping of a helicopter reached them. They all looked up as Griffin bolted out of one of the tents.
“Take cover!” he said.
They scattered. Javier went for one of the open shipping containers with Owen and Monroe, while Grace and David dove inside one of the tents with Griffin and Natalya. Then they waited, and Javier wondered if Isaiah was coming back for them. He believed Isaiah meant it when he’d said he needed them all alive, but that didn’t mean he intended to leave them free.
When the helicopter came into view, roaring overhead, it circled the camp once before setting down in the field, next to the river. The rotors slowed, shutting down, as the side door opened and a woman climbed out with a few Abstergo agents.
“Victoria,” Owen said.
“Who?” Javier asked.
“That’s Victoria. She was at the Aerie. Isaiah said she was on her way here.”
The woman wore the same uniform as Isaiah and looked around the camp as she walked closer, her face worried and confused, her posture defensive.
“Doesn’t look like she knows what happened,” Monroe said.
“Nope,” Javier said.
“Victoria!” Grace called as she emerged from the tent, waving her arms.
“What is she doing?” Owen asked, and Javier wondered the same thing.
Victoria turned and waved back, and rushed to meet Grace in the middle of the camp. Then David and Natalya came out, and Monroe looked at Owen and Javier with a shrug.
“No sense hiding now.”
So they left the shipping container and crossed the camp to join the others. Javier kept a wary eye on the agents, ready to pull a weapon if needed, as the helicopter’s blades came to a complete stop.
“Where is he?” Victoria asked. “Where is Isaiah?”
“Gone,” Grace said. “With the Piece of Eden.”
“But where is everyone else?” she asked.
“He took them with him,” Monroe said. “He’s gone rogue.”
Victoria closed her eyes, as if something she feared had just been confirmed. “He sent something to me just now.” She held up her phone. “It’s some kind of … manifesto.”
“What did it say?” Grace asked.
“I haven’t read it all y
et. But he’s broken from the Order, that much is clear. And he claims to have two of the prongs.”
“Two of them?” Owen asked.
Victoria nodded. “He found the one at Mount McGregor before you got there.”
“So he’s one away from the Trident,” Javier said. “The world is one prong away from another Alexander the Great.”
“Or worse,” Natalya said.
“I’m still trying to make sense of this,” Victoria said. “But so much is becoming clear. He and I disagreed often, about all of you, and now I know that’s because he was working toward his own agenda. Not the Templar vision.”
“We have to stop him from finding the third prong,” Javier said. “He was practically unstoppable with the fear prong. If he completes the Trident, he’ll be invincible.”
Victoria seemed to notice him for the first time, tilting her head. “You’re Javier.”
“Yes.”
“So the Assassins were here?”
“They are here,” Grace said.
At that, the Templar agents went into a defensive position, scanning their surroundings with weapons raised.
“Seriously?” Natalya said. “After what just happened, you’re still ready to fight? We need to work together. Isaiah has become bigger than the Templar Order or the Assassin Brotherhood, and I think he wants to destroy both of you.”
Victoria looked at her through narrowed eyes for several long moments. Then she turned to the agents at her side. “Put your weapons on the ground.”
They hesitated and she repeated the order. After they’d complied, she stepped away from the group with her hands spread wide and open.
“I am Dr. Victoria Bibeau! I know you can hear me! As you can see, my agents have put down their weapons!”
A moment passed. Javier wondered what Griffin would do.
“I’m calling for a ceasefire! I would like you to come out so we can talk!”
Another moment went by, and then Griffin emerged from the tent, his hood up, hiding half his face in shadow. He strode toward them, confidently, even aggressively, but kept his blade hidden.
“I’m Griffin,” he said. “And you, Dr. Bibeau, are probably the only Templar I would ever trust.”
“Those days are long past,” she said. “I am a Templar, now, make no mistake of that. But it is true that I am probably the only Templar who would even consider speaking with you. Or working with you to defeat Isaiah.”
It seemed there was more to Victoria’s history than any of them had known. Griffin seemed to know of her, at least, and she had apparently not always been loyal to the Templars. But Javier put his questions about that aside for the moment, hoping that Griffin would keep his cool, and Victoria would keep hers.
“I believe this might be unprecedented,” Griffin said. “A Templar asking an Assassin for help.”
“I’m not interested in which one of us is asking the other, and I really don’t care if that matters to your pride. What matters to me is stopping Isaiah.”
“Fair enough,” Griffin said. “The ceasefire will hold until the third prong is found, and Isaiah is stopped.”
“Maybe the world won’t come to an end, after all,” Monroe said.
“Do we have any idea where it is?” Javier asked.
“Scandinavia,” Victoria said. “We had very strong indications that it was in Scandinavia.”
Styrbjörn stood once more with Gyrid at the prow of his drakkar, but this time, he had a fleet of two hundred longships behind him. They had been raiding the Danish coast for months, and the Jomsvikings had proven their reputation well-founded. No village or town had resisted them, and every fleet sent to stop them had been sent to the bottom of the sea.
Palnatoke stood at Styrbjörn’s side, his second-in-command. “I look forward to seeing Harald’s rotten tooth as he smiles away his kingdom.”
“I don’t want his kingdom,” Styrbjörn said. “I want his army.”
“I want his kingdom,” Gyrid said.
Styrbjörn turned to his sister. “Are you sure about this?”
“I am sure,” she said. “You will have Sweden, and I will have Denmark.”
Styrbjörn nodded and turned his attention back to the harbor as his fleet moved in. The currents of the ocean and the wind flowed through Sean’s mind, and he relished the smell of the salt, the cry of the gulls overhead, the freedom.
Are you doing okay, Sean? Anaya asked.
“Yes,” he said. Victoria had wanted to take him with her after Grace and Owen had escaped with Monroe, but Sean had refused. How could he give this up? This was where he belonged. “I’m doing great.”
The drakkar eased up to the harbor’s main pier, and Styrbjörn saw a welcome party waiting for him there, prepared to offer him gifts and friendship to prevent the pillaging of their city. Among them, Styrbjörn saw Harald Bluetooth standing with his sons and daughters. The king of Denmark did not smile but seemed resigned, wearing a thick fur with an ornamented belt, and from his belt hung a peculiar dagger.
Sean leaned forward through the current of Styrbjörn’s mind, straining to get a closer look at the weapon, and realized with an almost overwhelming excitement what it was. He didn’t want to take his eyes from the weapon, for fear it would vanish.
“Anaya, I found it! I found the Piece of Eden!”
Silence met him.
“Anaya!”
Still more silence.
That seemed odd. “Anaya?”
Hello, Sean, came Isaiah’s voice.
“Isaiah?” Sean said. “You’re back?”
I am.
“I found it,” he said, almost finding it hard to breath. “The Piece of Eden. My ancestor just saw it!”
That’s incredible. I’m going to pull you out now so we can discuss it, all right?
“Okay,” Sean said, working to steady himself.
He then endured the discomforts of his transition to the Memory Corridor and then the extraction of the Parietal Suppressor, impatiently, and shook his head after the removal of the helmet, feeling slightly dizzy, but elated.
Isaiah stood next to the Animus ring, smiling. “Well done.”
“I just need to stay with this ancestor,” Sean said. “Styrbjörn will show us what happened to the Piece of Eden.”
“Excellent,” Isaiah said. He turned to the security woman standing next to him. She had blond hair, and the name badge on her uniform read COLE. “Bring the processor from Sean’s Animus.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring?” Sean said. “Are you leaving again?”
“Yes,” Isaiah said. “And this time, you are coming with me.”
Tomb of the Khan Page 27
