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"Assassins," said Tancred once his brother and the other men had finished their tale. "Assassins. You expect me to believe that you lot are Assassins and that you live up to some sort of Creed and have swindled my brother--my kind-hearted, soul-saving, silly brother--into joining your ranks with--with Lebkuchen of all this?"

"I'm gonna make good on that promise," Lex muttered.

"Shut up, boy!"

"Tancred." The merchant shut his mouth as his brother's voice sent ice into his veins. Gilbert spoke with an authority that belied his younger years, one that demanded his obedience for a reason the man couldn't fathom. "Bruderherz, Ich liebe dich, aber halte deine Zunge im Zaum!" The two brothers looked at each other for a long moment before Tancred shook his head.

"Lebkuchen. Mein Gott."

"Okay, I've got a deal for you, man," said Desmond, leaning his folded arms on his knees. "You're a business man, right?" A nod. "So am I. I'm a bartender. You're a merchant. We both provide a service. How about you extend that service to us? Provide us with information--we both know how customers can talk if they like the man's face who serves them--and we'll provide you and your family with protection."

Tancred leaned his chin on his fist.

"This deal doesn't sound bad, but let me ask you one thing. What kind of drinks do you serve, bartender?"

"Every kind of alcohol in the world."

A week later Tancred's head still spun from all of Masyaf he felt he had yet to explore. Mostly the people. The people were the lifeblood of his trade and the merchant couldn't resist the urge to stand in the market at least once daily and imagine what it would be like to set up his shop there. Moving to the fountain at the center of the market, he bent down and took a drink. Looking up from the water, the man smiled at two women who came to get some water themselves.

"Why, hello." Tancred grinned and opened his mouth to ask if he could help these fine ladies with their buckets when Desmond came by and drew him away. "What are you doing?"

"You don't want to have to deal with their brothers. Or their fathers. Or their husbands," said the hooded man flatly as they walked back up the hill. The two made their way up to the ledge where Gilbert and Lex sat, standing a ways off and listening. The German and his mentor didn't notice them, too engrossed in conversation.

"So, what's the problem, Gilly?" asked Lex. Gilbert scratched at his beard, then the back of his neck beneath his blonde hair.

"You see, Meister--"

"Lex."

"Lex. You see, Lex, there is this girl... Woman," Gilbert corrected himself, "this woman that I have my eye on and she has her eye on me. Her parents do give their concent. It is only..."

"Only...what?"

"I don't know what to do about her dowry." The four men glanced up as they heard a pair of footsteps. Malik was walking down the pathway toward Tancred and Desmond, leading a Novice beneath his arm, the little fingers clutching at his blue robes. The boy looked like any of the others but for a white streak going down the part in his black hair. The men watched as a woman came up the rise, small as the Sparrow, some of her long, black hair falling from beneath her headscarf. Nudging the little Novice on to her, Malik made his way over to them. Lex looked between Malik and the direction the boy had gone, motion toward his own hair.

"He's one of the new boys from Jerusalem, an orphan. I'm arranging for Gilbert and Sarah to take him in," explained the Rafiq, taking a seat beside them. "What is this I hear of a dowry problem?"

"It is only a small problem, Sayyid, really," Gilbert stammered, flustered now by the Hawk of all men coming to add his own advice to the pot. "You've shown so much kindness to my brother and I already. I cannot repay it all in one lifetime." So far the one-armed Master had set up an arrangement with Gilbert and his brother, using maps he'd made himself--it had amused Tancred to no end that there was a cartographer among the Assassins, let alone one with only a single arm; Gilbert had had to twist his brother's behind his back so as to make him keep the comment to himself--for the work the men would do for the Brotherhood. He couldn't ask much more of the man than what had already been given.

"Oh, shut up, Gilbert." Malik rolled his eyes and looked at Lex. "What have you been telling this man?"

"I was going to say that maybe he should talk to you about it," said the man's young mentor. "I mean, I don't know anything about marriage laws here other than there's sheep and goats involved, or some kind of labor or money." He shrugged. "You gotta give something for the girl's all I know."

"You were about to give him good advice then."

"Because it's a wonder the lad's voice is even deep as it is. What would he know about women and marriage?" Tancred grumbled. Desmond shoved his face into the grass in front of them and told him to stuff it quietly as they continued watching.

"I'll help with negotiating the bride price." Gilbert opened his mouth to protest, but Malik held up his hand. "Consider it as your payment for this month." He smirked. "Or should I make it your payment for the rest of the year?"

"You could make it the payment for the rest of my life."

"Your wife would murder you," Lex laughed. The others shook their heads.

"She's not my wife yet, Spaetzlein."

"Eh, fiancee then." The Journeyman shrugged. "So, did you take your brother with you to be your parent substitute or something for when you negotiated?" Gilbert looked away from him. Malik looked at him as well.

"No, I went myself. Tancred doesn't know yet."

"You didn't tell him?" Malik's brows rose. "He's your brother."

"Ja, das ist er. Exactly why I didn't."

"Du bloeder Arsch!" Tancred shouted as he shoved Desmond's smothering arms off his head. "Warum nicht? Ich bin dein Bruder!" He fell back into Arabic. "What would you think I would have done, sent a message to our uncle by stinking bird?"

"You shut up as well," Malik snapped. "Or you'll be joining the Novices at making the rounds of the top of the walls. All night." Tancred opened his mouth to protest, but could only murmur weakly, "You only have birds around here..."

"We have the Pony Express too, y'know," Desmond interrupted, forcing Tancred to a sit as he climbed up onto the spot where the others sat, shoving him to a sit himself as he used the man as a handhold. He took a seat for himself and added, "Let's just be happy for the time being that your brother's found love, buddy. It's a good excuse to eat, drink, and be merry."

"Drinking here? Pah." The Sparrow looked up at Gilbert as the large man put a hand on his shoulder.

"Dankeschoen," he said as he watched Desmond lead his brother off toward the keep.

"Wofuer?" Lex looked up at him. The blonde man was only smiling. He nodded to Malik and set off after the others. The two remaining men looked at one another. The Sparrow shrugged. "I dunno."

"I said nothing." Malik held up his hand and stood. "I said nothing. Sparrow, by the way..."

"Mm-hmm?"

"You picked a good man."

"Mm-hmm. Malik?"

"Yes?"

"What on earth have you been smoking? It's certainly not your usual brand of hash."


"Okay, okay, it's Tancred's turn." The foursome sat around the library of the keep. Desmond had managed to somehow get ahold of semi-decent beer. The men took another sip of their drinks. It had been a few hours since Malik's decision to help Gilbert out with his marriage arrangements.

Now Malik was in conversation with Jameel in front of the hearth, the lower ranking men a little ways away.

"We're at the kiddy table," Desmond had muttered.

The merchant took another swig of his beer and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"Ja. Let's go. My tongue's wet enough for a tale." He grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Have you two heard about the Sleepers?" The time travelers shook their heads. "It is a legend among all the three peoples of the Holy Land." He took another swig.

"You see...these men enter a cave. Three, four, seven and a dog, it doesn't matter the number, but these men enter a cave in the desert hills. When they awaken, it is thousands of years later. They are still young, still living when they got out. And one became a king and ruled for some odd number of years." He waved his hand airily. "Yes, yes, all that lot and rubbish."

"Can you take us there?" Desmond asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Can you take us there?" It was Lex this time. "To the cave from the legend?" Tancred looked at his brother, then at the other Assassins. He chuckled and shook his head, standing and moving off toward the room he'd been offered. Gilbert smiled.

"Tonight we continue to drink, my friends," he said. "Tomorrow you might try asking him again. But not in the morning. He's sure to have a raging headache."

Lex explained the plan to Jameel.

"You think this place will help you get home, if it even exists anymore?" The Red Owl looked at him with a deadpan stare. He ran a hand over his eyes and face. Allah, it's too early for this. "Whatever, Lex. Just don't break the tenets, or I'll come and kill you myself."

"What, you're not coming?" Lex stared at him, feeling something like a rock sink into the pit of his stomach. Or maybe that was his heart.

"Not until I've had a proper night's sleep. Four more hours. The muezzins aren't even up yet." Lex nodded, lying down beside him. He reached over at shook Jameel's shoulder. "La."

"Jameel."

"Huh?"

"Just to clarify, you're in on this, right?"

"Hnnnn..."

"Jami."

"Ahhlass, ahbal," the Master Assassin groaned into his pillow. "Min fadlak, ahhlass..." Lex found himself pressed down onto his belly, head on his pillow. "Or I'll feed you to some rabid fluff owls." The young man chalked that last up to the consequence of it being at least two in the morning.



Four days passed on the ride north and westward. For fourty-eight of those many, long hours, Tancred never once was quiet. Even in his sleep he murmured and snored and mumbled and carried on. On the afternoon of the third day, Lex reined in his horse beside Gilbert's. The man was staring toward his brother with a look of resigned patience, watching him have a verbal battle with some kind or other of scrub brush.

"Gilbert," Lex said slowly, "can I say something to you even if it doesn't make any logical sense to you?" The tall Novice looked at him and shrugged.

"If you feel you must." Lex lifted his arm and pointed to Tancred, who was screaming various insults now at the bush that had snagged his clothing and was tearing it at the hem.

"This is not jumping the shark," said the Journeyman. "Gonna repeat that. This is not jumping the shark. Oh, no, no, no, no. This is jumping the shark, coming back, shooting it in the balls, raping it, eating its flesh, consuming its soul, mounting its head on the wall, and then doing the same thing to twelve more ******** sharks just to be safe!"

Gilbert looked toward his mentor's back and then at his brother. A few hours later, Desmond startled, realizing that the ride had been in silence. Whatever Gilbert had said to his brother, he was glad of it.

The Assassins stopped overnight on the fourth day from Masyaf in a small inn in Kuşadası. Surprising them all, it was on Tancred's dime. The next morning they were off again, heading northeast to Ephesus.

Desmond sighed as the horses picked their way up the slope of the mountain. He looked at the dark hole that faced them, shadow within shadow. Maybe it'll be closed off. Maybe it's just a stupid cave, Desmond, he thought to himself. He looked around at the others.

Gilbert and Tancred were lighting improvised torches made from sticks and rags, one for each of them. Jameel took the first, moving up to the mouth of the cave and peering inside. Lex went after them as they moved into the yawning mouth in the mountainside, the German brothers bringing up the rear.

"D'you think there are any booby traps in here?" asked Lex after they'd been walking in the dim torchlight for a good number of minutes; Desmond couldn't tell how many.

"Please, kid, you've been watching too much Indiana Jo--" The man disappeared as he fell into a hole, the "oohnes" echoing around the walls until the Assassins crowded around the pit heard, "Owww!"

"Desmond, are you all right?" Jameel called. "Desmond?"

"I hate all of you."

Lex looked up from the hole at the Red Owl and smiled, saying, "Yeah, he's all right." Turning around, the Sparrow fitted himself into the hole and shimmied down awkwardly into the hole. Dropping when the walls began to turn, he landed beside Desmond. The man looked at the other time traveler before they stood up and took up their torches once more, edging one after the other into the small hole that led off the one they'd fallen into.

"Ouch. Move."

"Gimme a minute. I'm stuck."

"Oww! Lex, damn it, that's my face!" Desmond shoved Lex's foot off his face, shoving the boy into a large cavern. The bartender followed after him. "What?" He looked at the boy's staring face, then turned to see what he was looking at. "Oh my God..."

Indiana Jones boy wasn't far off. Should've been thinking more Crystal Skull than Temple of Doom.

Before the two men was a room lit by dimly glowing crystal, illuminating what looked to Desmond like different sized versions of the Animus. What is the plural of that anyway? Animuses? Animi...? Lex stood and moved to one of the machines. "Hey, hey, hey, be careful." Desmond hurried over to him as Lex reached for the nearest crystal. "Careful!"

"Shut up and I will be," Lex whispered, touching the tip of the crystal gently. The pair leaned in close to the crystal. "So, these things could take us to the future, right?"

"Probably. We should take one or two of 'em and see what they do."

Lex worked one of the crystals out carefully with his dagger as Desmond did the same. "Should we really be messing with alien technology?"

"If I grow a third arm, you'll be the first to know." Putting the crystals into their packs, they headed back toward the entrance.

As the Assassins mounted their horses and rode back toward home, two figures perched above the cave, staring out at them from white bone masks. The black-clad watchers looked toward one another before letting a black feathered bird soar up into the sky.



The riders came in a zigzagging line up the slope. Gilbert made it first to the gates, dismounting and hurrying to where Sarah stood with the young Novice with the odd hair. He picked her up and spun her around, hugging her tightly despite the stares he received from a few passersby.

Tancred came next, swearing under his breath as he trudged up to the keep. Desmond made up the rear with Jameel and Lex. The Eagle dismounted and looked up as he looked up toward the keep. He felt his blood chill as he heard a croaking cawing.

Jameel looked up sharply at the crow circling high above them, arms still around Lex from helping the sore Sparrow down. Three more joined it. Is it an escort? Crows never flew in such a deliberate, organized manner. Masyaf is being watched...or is it? Those deceptive bastards...

"They're just birds." The murmur broke the Red Owl out of his thoughts. He looked at Lex. He was pale, eyes fixed on the wheeling birds. Jameel didn't need to see the fear in his eyes; he could feel it in the grip on his arm. The Sparrow met his gaze. "They're just birds."

"They were trained to fly like that. That's the only rational conclusion I can come up with." The crows made another pass overhead and flew off. They wouldn't dare strike at Masyaf, would they? No, scary as they are, they wouldn't dare... But they seem to have such a powerful grip on the cities around us...

Jameel clamped down on the mounting paranoia, refusing to let it show as he took Lex's hand tightly in his own and led him up the path toward home.