Assassin's Creed: The Official Movie Novelization

by Christie Golden

  THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATION

  625 3rd St, San Francisco,

  CA 94107, U.S.A.

  © 2016 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft, and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries.

  Published by Ubisoft.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Ubisoft, 625 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94107 Attention: Legal Department.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Special thanks:

  Yves Guillemot, Laurent Detoc, Alain Core, Geoffroy Sardin, Yannis Mallat, Gérard Guillemot, Stephanie Simard, Virginie Bourdin, Michael Fassbender, Justin Kurzel, Andy Nicholson, Etienne Allonier, Aymar Azaïzia, Anouk Bachman, Antoine Ceszynski, Maxime Durand, Richard Farrese, Joshua Meyer, Virginie Gringarten, Marc Muraccini, Cécile Russeil, Faceout Studio, Paul Nielsen, Derek Thornton, Torrey Sharp, Sébastien Courmont, Sébastien Domergue, Elodie Gonay, Philippe Lalande, Jean-Francois Renaud, Michael Beadle, Heather Pond, Joanie Simms, Damian Dale, Megan Beatie, Andrien Gbinigie, Stephanie Pecaoco, Sain Sain Thao, Michael Kwan, Hector Rodriguez, Clémence Deleuze, François Tallec.

  ISBN ePub 978-1-945210-26-6

  Book design by Faceout Studio, Derek Thornton and Paul Nielsen.

  Cover Art © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Ubisoft Motion Pictures Assassin’s Creed. All Rights Reserved.

  Adaptation to electronic format by Studio C1C4

  * * *

  This book is dedicated to all those who have played and loved the Assassin’s Creed games, but especially to Ryan Puckett, who has always demonstrated kindness and generosity far beyond his years.

  * * *

  For centuries, the Order of the Knights Templar have searched for the mythical Apple of Eden.

  They believe it contains not only the seeds of man’s first disobedience, but the key to free will itself.

  If they find the relic and decode its secrets, they will have the power to control all human thought.

  Only a brotherhood called the Assassins stands in their way. . . .

  PROLOGUE

  ANDALUCIA, SPAIN

  1491

  The sky was golden fire, gilding all it touched; the rocky facets of the jutting mountains, the city spread out below them, and the red tile roof of the Moorish fortress, which offered up fire of its own in the open courtyard.

  The eagle soared through the whipping wind, winging its way toward its evening resting place before the gold gave way to the cooler lavender hues of an encroaching night. Below, those who labored tending the forge and shaping blades paid neither the eagle, nor the wind, nor the sky any heed.

  Their faces were swathed in shadow, hidden by the hoods they all wore as they worked; sharpening fresh blades, pouring molten metal to form new ones, and hammering red steel into gray obedience. No one spoke. The silence was broken only by the scraping and clanging of their task.

  Outside the entrance of the great fortress stood a single figure. Tall, well-formed, and sleek with muscle, he was both somber and impatient. While he wore a hood like the others, he was not truly one of them.

  Not yet.

  It was in his blood; that much was undeniable. His parents had been part of the Brotherhood he was about to pledge his life to protect. When he had been but a child, his parents had taught him how to fight, how to hide, how to leap and climb, all in the guise of play or adventure.

  He had been too young, too innocent, to understand the brutal reality behind the lessons he was learning. And then, when he was older, his parents had told him who they were, and what they served. He had not liked the idea that he was not the master of his own fate, and had been reluctant to follow in their footsteps.

  It had cost them all.

  The great enemy had sniffed them out.

  Had observed their behavior, their habits. Like predators, the ancient foe had culled his parents from the herd, from their brothers and sisters, and descended in numbers too great to resist.

  And the age-old enemy had slain them.

  Not cleanly, with respect, in a fair fight, oh no. Not this enemy. This enemy had bound them with chains to a stake. Had placed bundles of wood at their feet, doused the bundles—and them—with oil, and set them afire while crowds cheered the horrific spectacle.

  He had not been there, when they were taken. He had wondered then, and still wondered now, as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, if he had been, could he have turned the tide? The members of the Brotherhood, who had come too late, assured him that no, he could not have. Not without training.

  The murderers had made no effort to hide their deed, but had rather boasted of capturing “infidels.” Tall, with a chest broader than a barrel, cold-eyed and colder-hearted, this man—Ojeda—had led the attack. And he had stood beside Father Tomás de Torquemada as the monster had condemned, then burned, Aguilar’s family.

  It had been too late to save them. But it was not too late to save himself.

  The Brotherhood had turned him away at first, questioning his motives. But Maria had seen in him more than a desire for revenge. She had broken through his raw grief and instinctive, impulsive anger to the man inside, to someone who could see beyond taking revenge on the man who had killed his family.

  To the man who knew there was more in this world that mattered than those he had loved—there was the Creed. Something that would outlive all of them, and could be passed on to generations yet to come.

  To the children of Assassins—like he had been.

  And so, he had been trained. Some of it was easy, and he blessed his parents for their nurturance of such “play.” Some of it was harder, and he bore scars as testament to the times when he had been slow or inattentive or simply too weary.

  He learned the history of his lineage, and the courage that drove what must seem like mad recklessness to those who stood on the outside, whose pulses did not quicken as those of the Brotherhood did.

  Through it all, was Maria.

  Quick to laugh, quicker with her blades, she seemed to thrum with intensity with every breath. She pushed him mercilessly when he flagged, praised him when he succeeded, and now, she was inside, helping with the rite that would move him to stand where the spirits of his murdered family would have him be.

  He snapped out of his reverie when several of the hooded forms appeared at the door, beckoning him to follow. In silence he obeyed, his heart racing with anticipation, but cultivating calmness as he walked down the stairs into the open area. The sound of chanting reached his ears: “Laa shay’a waqi’un moutlaq bale koulon moumkine.”

  The other hooded figures stood in a loose circle around a rectangular table in the center. At one end stood someone close to the initiate; Benedicto, the Mentor, with whom he had trained and fought beside. He was a kind man, free with laughter and praise, but the light of the candles on the table and the torches flickering in their sconces revealed a face currently devoid of lighter emotions.

  It had been Benedicto, along with Maria, who had reached out to the bereft yo
ung man. He had not pretended he could replace the father that had been snatched away from a broken son, but Benedicto had done what he could. He had earned the respect of everyone in attendance—including the initiate.

  When he spoke, his voice was strong, and he addressed all present.

  “The Inquisition has finally delivered Spain to the Templars. Sultan Muhammad and his people still hold out in Granada. But if his son, the prince, is captured, he will surrender the city and the Apple of Eden.”

  The tattooed faces, many of them sporting scars, remained largely impassive, but Aguilar could feel the tension rise in the room at the news. Benedicto looked at them, and seemed to be pleased with what he saw.

  His dark gaze finally alighted on the initiate. It was time.

  “Do you, Aguilar de Nerha, swear to honor our Brotherhood in the fight for freedom? To defend mankind against the Templars’ tyranny, and preserve free will?”

  Aguilar answered without hesitation. “I swear.”

  Benedicto continued, his voice intense.

  “If the Apple falls into their hands, the Templars will destroy everything that stands in their way. Protest, dissent… our right to think for ourselves. Swear to me that you will sacrifice your life and the lives of everyone here to keep it from them.”

  Aguilar sensed that this was not part of the standard ritual, that Benedicto wanted to make certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that in this most dangerous of times, the initiate fully understood all that might be asked of him.

  But Aguilar had no hesitation. “Yes, Mentor.”

  The Mentor’s brown eyes searched his, then he nodded, moving to step beside Aguilar. He reached for the younger man’s right hand, wrapped with bandages in anticipation of the required sacrifice, bringing it down not ungently to rest upon a block of carved wood banded with decorated metal.

  There were other, darker decorations on the wood as well; stains the hue of old rust.

  Benedicto took care to place Aguilar’s hand just so, and settled a two-pronged instrument over the younger man’s ring finger. Aguilar knew the Mentor felt him tense, despite himself.

  “Our own lives are nothing,” Benedicto reminded him, his gaze boring into Aguilar’s. “The Apple is everything. The spirit of the Eagle will watch over the future.”

  His mother and father had left behind a legacy of fierce love, and a history Aguilar now ached to follow. They had also left him behind. He had thought he was alone, but in a moment, he would not be. In a moment, he would have a vast family—a brotherhood.

  Benedicto shoved the instrument down, severing the finger.

  The pain was exquisite. But Aguilar steeled himself and did not cry out, nor jerk back instinctively. Blood gushed, swiftly drenching the bandages that soaked it up greedily as he breathed deeply, his survival instincts vying with the discipline instilled in his training.

  The blade has been honed to perfect sharpness, he told himself. The cut is clean. It will heal.

  And I, too, will heal.

  Maria walked toward him, holding out an ornate gauntlet crafted of metal and leather. Aguilar slipped his arm in carefully, gritting his teeth so he would not wince as his fresh wound scraped against the gauntlet’s edge. He would not look at it, would look only at Maria, into the depths of her warm blue-green eyes rimmed with dark kohl, her beauty enhanced by the tattoos that kissed her on forehead, chin, and beneath both eyes.

  Maria, who had come to him first in the role of a kind sister, but who over time had become so much more. He knew all of her; her laughter, her scent, the soft puff of her breath against his skin as she slept in his arms. He knew the curve of her thigh, and the strength of her arms as she playfully pinned him before rewarding him with the heat of her mouth.

  But there was no playfulness in this moment. Maria was many things to him, but Aguilar well knew that should he stumble here, her blade would be the first to find his throat.

  Before all else, she was an Assassin, and before all ties, she was bound to the Creed.

  As he would be.

  Her voice, sweet and strong, spoke the ritual words. “Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember…”

  “… nothing is true,” said the rest in unison.

  “Where other men are limited by morality or law, remember…”

  “… everything is permitted.”

  Aguilar held her gaze a moment longer, then made the slight movement of his wrist, as he had been taught. With a bright metallic sound, as if joyful it had been freed, the blade on the underside of his arm sprang forward to fill the gap left by the severed ring finger.

  Aguilar’s voice trembled with intensity when he spoke. “We work in the dark to serve the Light.”

  He took a breath.

  “We are… Assassins.”

  And above them, an eagle’s cry sounded, as if the spirit was pleased.

  CHAPTER 1

  BAJA, CALIFORNIA

  1988

  Cal Lynch looked up at the sound of the eagle’s cry, squinting against the sunlight. He couldn’t see it clearly, silhouetted against the sky as it was, but he grinned at it as he flipped the hood of his gray sweatshirt over his dark blond hair and prepared himself.

  He, too, was going to fly.

  He’d been wanting to do this… well, forever, since his parents had first moved here a few months ago. They moved a lot; it was something Cal simply took for granted about his family. Dad and Mom got odd jobs wherever they could, they stayed for a while, and then moved on.

  Because of this, Cal had never really had the chance to make friends. So it was that today, the day he was finally going to do it, he had no audience. It didn’t particularly bother him, and in fact, it was just as well—he was definitely not supposed to be doing this in the first place.

  He’d dragged his bike all the way up to the roof of one of the vacant, dilapidated old buildings. Once his foot had gone right through one of the rusted-out steps, slicing through his jeans to bite at his leg. It was cool; he’d gotten a tetanus shot from the low-cost clinic a year ago.

  He was used to rooftops. At night, when his parents thought him safely inside his room, he would crawl out his bedroom window and onto the roofs, scampering off into the coolness and secrecy of the night—and into many misadventures of which his parents were blissfully ignorant.

  Cal’s destination today was a large shipping container, set slightly lower than the roof upon which Cal and his bike were perched. The gulf between them was twenty feet or so—no big deal.

  Except his heart fluttered in his chest as he sat, one foot on a pedal, one foot on the building’s roof.

  He closed his eyes, breathing slowly through his nostrils to calm his racing heart and shallow breath.

  You’re already there, he told himself. It’s already done. See every inch of the journey. See the wheels landing perfectly, how you’re going to bring the bike around right away so you don’t shoot off the other side.

  Oh, that wasn’t a good image, and he immediately tried to scrub it from his brain. But it was like the old joke—“don’t think of a pink elephant,” and boom, suddenly that was all you could see.

  Cal redirected his attention, seeing himself pedaling, soaring, landing—victorious.

  In his mind’s eye, he flew. Like the eagle.

  He could do it.

  Slowly, calmly, Cal opened his eyes and tightened his grasp on the handlebars.

  Now.

  He threw himself into it, pedaling furiously, his eyes fixed not on the rapidly decreasing length of roof or on the pile of junk that lay between it and the shipping container, but on his destination. Faster, faster, and then, there was nothing below his tires as he pulled the front wheel of his bike up hard.

  He sailed over the trash below, his face spreading in a grin of absolute perfect, pure joy. Yes! He was going to make it—

  The first wheel cleared it.

  The second didn’t.

  So quickly he didn’t even have time to be frightened, Ca
l and the bike landed hard on the pile of old mattresses, trash, and other detritus he had laboriously dragged to the spot over several weeks. He moved experimentally, but nothing appeared to be broken. Cal was bleeding from a scrape on his face and his whole body ached, but he was okay.

  The bicycle wasn’t in the best shape, either, and it was seeing the damage to it more than anything else that brought his failure home hard.

  “Shit,” he swore, then dragged himself and the bike out of the trash heap. He was not looking forward to explaining his injuries to his parents.

  He took a few moments to inspect himself. A few cuts and bruises on his face and body, nothing too bad; even the cut on his leg had stopped bleeding. The bike, too, had some cosmetic dings here and there, but was still rideable.

  Good. Cal looked up, squinting, and smiled as he saw the small dot that was the eagle. Well… Mom and Dad didn’t have to know everything right away.

  Cal set off to follow the eagle for a while.

  ***

  Shadows were starting to lengthen by the time Cal returned to the rundown tenement community he called home.

  His bike stirred up yellow dust from the dirt road. Everything here was covered with the pale, drifting gold, and a few decorative strands of colored pennants strung across the road provided the only splashes of color.

  Cal’s usual good mood had returned. He was already analyzing what he had done wrong, and how to make the jump successful the next time. After all, this was only the first attempt. Callum Lynch was not a quitter. He’d try again tomorrow—or, he amended, being realistic, as soon as his parents let him have the bike back.

  It was only after Cal was well within the town’s limits that he noticed that something was off. People were out of their houses, a few sitting in chairs with drinks, but most standing around, just… staring.