Ezio picked himself up and confronted his archenemy once more.
‘You are a demon!’ cried Rodrigo. ‘How is it that you can resist?’ Then he lowered his eyes and saw that the pouch at Ezio’s side, which still contained the Apple, was glowing brightly.
‘I see!’ said Rodrigo, his eyes glowing like coals. ‘You have the Apple! How convenient! Give it to me now!’
‘Vai a farti fottere!’
Rodrigo laughed. ‘Such vulgarity! But always the fighter! Just like your father. Well, rejoice, my child, for you will see him again soon!’
He swung his Staff again and the crozier’s hook smashed against the scar on the back of Ezio’s left hand. A shock thrilled through Ezio’s veins and he staggered back, but did not fall.
‘You will give it me,’ snarled Rodrigo, closing in.
Ezio thought fast. He knew what the Apple was capable of and he had to take a risk now or die in the attempt. ‘As you wish,’ he replied. He withdrew the Apple from his pouch and held it aloft. It flashed so powerfully that the entire lofty chapel seemed for a moment to be illuminated by bright sunlight, and when the gloom of the candlelight returned, Rodrigo saw eight Ezios ranged before him.
But he remained unruffled. ‘It can make copies of you!’ he said. ‘How impressive. Hard to tell which is the real you, and which a chimera – but that’d be hard at the best of times, and if you think such a cheap conjuring trick is going to save you, think again!’
Rodrigo swung out at the clones, and each time he hit one, it vanished in a puff of smoke. The ghost-Ezios pranced and feinted, lunging at the now worried-looking Rodrigo, but they could do no harm to the Spaniard other than to distract him. Only the real Ezio was able to land any blows – but they were minor glances, such was the power of the Staff, that he was unable to get close enough to the vile Pope. But Ezio quickly realized that the fight was sapping Rodrigo’s strength. By the time the seven ghosts were gone, the repulsive pontiff was tired and out of breath. Madness imparts an energy to the body that few other things can, but despite the powers the Staff imbued in him, Rodrigo was after all a fat old man of seventy-two, and suffering from syphilis. Ezio put the Apple back in its pouch.
Breathless after the fight with the phantoms, the Pope sank to his knees. Ezio, almost equally breathless because his phantoms had necessarily used his energy to disport themselves, stood over him. Looking up, Rodrigo clutched his Staff. ‘You will not take this from me,’ he said.
‘It’s all over, Rodrigo. Put the Staff down and I will grant you a swift and merciful death.’
‘How generous,’ sneered Rodgrio. ‘I wonder if you’d give up in such a supine way if things were the other way round?’
Summoning his strength, the Pope rose abruptly to his feet, at the same time slamming the foot of his Staff against the ground. In the dimness beyond them, the priests and people groaned again and new energy whipped from the staff against Ezio, hitting him like a sledgehammer and sending him flying.
‘How’s that for starters?’ said the Pope, with an evil grin. He walked over to where Ezio lay winded. Ezio started to take the Apple out again but too late, for Rodrigo crushed his hand with his boot and the Apple rolled away. The Borgia stooped to pick it up.
‘At last!’ he said, smiling. ‘And now… to deal with you!’
He held the Apple up and it glowed banefully. Ezio seemed as if frozen, trapped, for he was unable to move. The Pope leaned over him in fury, but then his expression calmed, seeing his adversary completely in his power. From his robes he drew a short-sword, and, looking at his prostrate foe, stabbed him deliberately in the side, with a look of pity mingled with disdain.
But the pain of the wound seemed to weaken the power of the Apple. Ezio lay prone, but watched through a haze of pain as Rodrigo, thinking himself secure, turned and faced Botticelli’s fresco of The Temptation of Christ. Standing close to it, he raised the Staff. Cosmic energy arced out of it to embrace the fresco, a part of which swivelled opened to reveal a secret door, through which Rodrigo passed after casting one last triumphant look back at his fallen enemy. Ezio watched helplessly as the door closed behind the Pope, and only had time to fix the location of the door before he passed out.
He came to, he knew not how much later, but the candles were burnt low and the priests and people had vanished. He found that although he was lying in a pool of his own blood, the wound Rodrigo had delivered had cut into his side and touched no fatal organ. He got up shakily, leaning against a wall for support and breathing deeply and regularly until his head cleared. He was able to staunch his wound with strips torn from his shirt. He prepared his Codex weapons – the double-blade on the left forearm, the poison-blade on the right – and approached the Botticelli fresco.
He remembered that the door was concealed in the figure, on the right-hand side, of a woman bearing a fardel of wood to the sacrifice. Stepping close, he examined the painting minutely until he had traced the barely visible outline. Then he looked carefully at the details of the painting both to the right and left of the woman. Near her feet was the figure of a child with an upraised right hand, and it was in the tips of the fingers of this hand that Ezio found the button that triggered the door. As it opened, he slipped through it, and wasn’t surprised that it snapped shut behind him immediately. He would not think of retreating now in any case.
He found himself in what looked like a catacomb corridor, but, as he cautiously advanced, the rough walls and dirt floor gave way to smoothly dressed stone and a marble floor that would not have disgraced a palace. And the walls glowed with a pale, supernatural light.
He was weak from his wound but he forced himself onwards, fascinated, and more awed than scared, though he was still on his guard, for he knew the Borgia had passed this way.
At last the passageway opened into a large room. The walls were smooth as glass and glowed with the same blue iridescence he’d seen earlier, only here it was more intense. In the centre of the room was a pedestal, and on it rested, in holders clearly designed for them, the Apple and the Staff.
The rear wall of the room was punctuated with hundreds of evenly spaced holes, and before it stood the Spaniard, desperately pushing and poking at the wall, oblivious of Ezio’s arrival.
‘Open, damn you, open!’ he cried in frustration and rage.
Ezio came forward. ‘It’s over, Rodrigo,’ he said. ‘Give it up. It doesn’t make sense any more.’
Rodrigo spun round to face him.
‘No more tricks,’ said Ezio, releasing his own daggers and throwing them down. ‘No more ancient artefacts. No more weapons. Now… let’s see what you’re made of, Vecchio.’
A smile slowly suffused Rodrigo’s debauched and broken face. ‘All right – if that’s how you want to play it.’
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 naïve? 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…
Ezio also recognized not only the Apple and the Staff, but also a great sword, and the Shroud of Christ, all carried by figures who were human in shape, but somehow not human. He discerned a depiction of the First Civilizations.
And at last, in the depths of the Vault, he encountered a huge granite sarcophagus. As Ezio approached it began to glow, a welcoming light. He touched its huge lid and it lifted with an audible hiss, though featherlight as if glued to his fingers, and slid back. From the stone tomb a wonderful yellow light shone – warm and nurturing as the sun. Ezio shielded his eyes with his hand.
Then, from the sarcophagus, rose a figure whose features Ezio could not make out, though he knew he was looking at a woman. She looked at Ezio with changing, fiery eyes, and a voice came from her too – a voice at first like the warbling of birds, which finally settled into his own language.
&nb
sp; Ezio saw a helmet on her head. An owl on her shoulder. He bent his head.
‘Greetings, Prophet,’ said the goddess. ‘I have been waiting for you for ten thousand thousand seasons.’
Ezio dared not look up.
‘It is good that you have come,’ the Vision continued. ‘And you have the Apple by you. Let me see.’
Humbly, Ezio proffered it.
‘Ah.’ Her hand caressed the air over it but she did not touch it. It glowed and pulsated. Her eyes bore into him. ‘We must speak.’ She tilted her head, as if considering something, and Ezio thought he could see the trace of a smile on the iridescent face.
‘Who are you?’ he dared ask.
She sighed. ‘Oh – many names… When I died, it was Minerva. Before that, Merva and Mera… and back again and again through time… Look!’ She pointed to the row of sarcophagi which Ezio had passed. Now, as she pointed at them in turn, each glowed with the pale sheen of moonlight. ‘And my family… Juno, who was before called Uni… Jupiter, who before was named Tinia…’
Ezio was transfixed. ‘You are the ancient gods…’
There was a noise like glass breaking in the distance, or the sound a falling star might make – it was her laughter. ‘No – not gods. We simply came… before. Even when we walked the world, your kind struggled to understand our existence. We were more… advanced in time… Your minds were not yet ready for us…’ She paused. ‘And perhaps they still are not… Maybe they never will be. But it is no matter.’ Her voice hardened a fraction. ‘But although you may not comprehend us, you must comprehend our warning…’
She drifted into silence. Into that silence, Ezio said, ‘None of what you are saying makes sense to me.’
‘My child, these words are not meant for you… They are meant for…’ And she looked into the darkness beyond the Vault, a darkness unbounded by walls or time itself.
‘What is it?’ asked Ezio, humbled and frightened. ‘What are you talking about? There’s no one else here!’
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