And no other site to put it on.
Oh, wellz. All I can say is, I hope you enjoy it. I've worked hard on it, so... yeah. Here it is.
Oh, lookie, a disclaimer!
This is a transformation fan-fiction that the author (aka me) has decided to write for the hell of it. I have no rights to the character Altaїr Ibn La-Ahad; he, as well as the game and title Assassin’s Creed, are the property of Ubisoft. I do not have permission to use them, but since I’ve stated it, hopefully I won’t get sued.
The transformation is transgender. Anyone who finds this material offensive can go find something else to read.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started, shall we?
Assassin’s Creed
A fan-fiction
By Michael
Prologue
Nobody heard the scream. Only the body falling. Even then, only one guard caught it and turned around. All he saw was his general’s blood spilling from a cut in his throat. The cut wasn’t there a second ago.
Once the crowd that had gathered noticed the general wasn’t coming out, and the reason why, they all screamed and ran like chickens from a hungry fox. The guards drew their swords and looked around, but the only other people there were the remnants of the fleeing crowd.
But one face stood out, or at least it would have if it were easily visible. It was mostly covered by a pure white hood. It stood out because the one it belonged to was the only one who wasn’t running, and displayed an unmistakable grin. Then a woman passed in front of him. He disappeared.
Chapter 1
Altaїr smiled to himself. His mission was successful. It wasn’t his most difficult mission, but satisfying nonetheless. He had killed many others to destroy this man, and he was glad to know their lives had not gone to waste. He wasn’t even being chased yet. He was walking calmly down the crowded streets of poor Jerusalem, using the undulating mass of living bodies to move easily to the gates that led to his horse, and a quick getaway to the assassin’s guild.
He hadn’t even reached the gate when he heard a loud, commanding voice ahead of him. He looked up to see a field commander ordering guards about, who then formed a wall of troops underneath and around the gates. Altaїr cursed his luck. He knew he should have moved faster than that. It had never failed him before, but he decided to take the leisurely route instead. Now there was an impregnable wall of eyes that would pick him out in an instant. He looked to the walls, but they had no footholds, and even if they had, the drop on the other side would surely kill him. The extremities near the gates were being occupied by guards, as well. There was no getting past this gate without blood.
He decided to go the long way. Unfortunately, luck was not on his side. He was quickly shoved out of the crowd by a thug and straight into the back of the field commander, who was still giving orders to the small battalion. The commander turned and froze for a split second, having locked eyes with Altaїr, and then burst into action as the assassin tried to stab him with his hidden knife, which was still bloody from his last kill in the square. The commander caught Altaїr’s arm before it reached his neck, and then shoved him backwards. By the time Altaїr regained his balance, there were seven guards surrounding him, with a hundred more ready to jump in at a moment’s notice.
All the same, Altaїr drew his blade, and looked at his assailants, ready to strike. He knew he wouldn’t win. It was him versus over a hundred veteran guards. But there was no way he was going down without a fight.
The commander smiled. So this was the assassin that murdered the nine Templers the year before. He didn’t look so ferocious. Even so, he had managed to kill the general without any of the guards noticing him. But he had a hundred men at his disposal, and he had already sent a messenger for reinforcements. He would not escape.
A guard grabbed Altaїr from behind. Another grabbed his right arm, causing him to drop his sword, and another seized his left arm, ensuring he couldn’t move. He struggled with all his might, but the guards held fast, mocking him, spitting on him, and kicking him. The commander ordered all his troops to put away their swords, him doing the same, and walked up to the helpless assassin, smiling darkly.
“Well, well, well. What have we here? A lone assassin out to get us all? Oh, I’m so frightened,” mocked the commander. He walked slowly and arrogantly in front of Altaїr, who was watching him with a fair amount of hatred.
“You know, I didn’t believe it when I got the message, but I guess it was true. One man really can make a difference to so many lives. He can destroy so many with one blade on his wrist. You killed millions when you killed nine men.” He stopped directly in front of Altaїr, looking him in the eye as best he could, and continued, “Those men were there to help those millions! You killed them all without mercy, dooming people to cursed existences! Now there will be chaos all over the kingdom!”
“Those men were there to doom those millions themselves,” Altaїr said, speaking for the first time in a while, “Just in a different way.”
“Silence!” The commander spat in his face. “I will not stand for such blasphemy!”
“Call off your guards and fight me like a man,” Altaїr replied calmly, “and you’ll not stand at all.”
The commander, regaining his composure, replied, “No. You’ll not use that as an avenue of escape. I’m no fool, assassin. No, I will see you hanged by the neck for this. But first…” The smile was back. Altaїr didn’t so much as flinch. “Let’s see what’s under that hood.”
With a swift movement, he reached up, grabbed Altaїr’s signature hood, and ripped it back before Altaїr could avoid him. He looked around and noticed all the other guards looking at him, at his now exposed face. He began to despair for the second time in his life as an assassin. His face was fully exposed, and its image was being imprinted on the memories of every last guard present. His gut tightened with fear.
The commander was ranting again. “See here, men! Look on the face of the enemy!” It should be noted as he was doing this, all attention was being drawn to him. “Does it not sicken you? I, myself, can barely stand it. I have an urge to run my blade through his heart this moment! I—“
The commander turned around, not only to see Altaїr was missing, but the three guards who were holding him were on the ground with holes in their throats. He spun around in time to see a mounted horse running off over a hill. As the commander’s men looked around in confusion, he screamed his anger.
Chapter 2
Altaїr pushed his stolen horse as far as it would go, getting as far as he could away from Jerusalem. He didn’t look back.
He had replaced his hood as he left, but knew there was little point. Every one of those guards knew his face now. There was no hope for him. He couldn’t simply kill over a hundred men, not by himself, and he didn’t want to call on the guild for his error. He needed a different sort of help.
He decided to visit his informant, Michael Ma’mun, his last name meaning Trustworthy (he rarely spoke of his first name). Michael was usually seen waiting around a small homestead on the edge of the wilderness, but for one who lives an elusive life, he was awfully young, and even though he was so solitary, he was remarkably well-informed. It was from him Altaїr got the information on the general. He wasn’t too sure what to think of Michael, for he was rather unpredictable at times. He had only recently joined the assassin’s guild. His finger wasn’t even fully healed yet, for when Altaїr arrived, he had a bandage on his left hand that went down between his middle finger and pinky.
“Finished already?” asked Michael as Altaїr stopped his horse in front of him. He was a slight boy, tall for his age but very skinny and only 18, if memory served. “That was fast. Too bad you got caught.”
Altaїr stared, partly in anger, mostly in confusion. The boy certainly was well connected, but he didn’t think news traveled that fast. As if he had read his mind, he said, “There’s talk all over the kingdom of an assassin’s face. I figured it could only be you. Apparently he only just escaped on horseback.”
“Enough, child,” snapped Altaїr. “If you know this so well, you must also know I need help.”
“Of the worst sort, of course,” Michael replied, rather sarcastically.
“You should respect your superiors, child. Especially when you’ve barely earned the right to wield a blade.”
“Apologies, master. What sort of assistance do you need?”
“I need to find a way to hide my identity.”
Michael looked blank for a moment. “You mean… permanently?”
“Of course.”
“Uh… well… I had heard… perhaps…”
“Out with it, child.”
“One of my… informants… told me of a small village a few miles from here. They had allied themselves with the assassins upon moving there and if we needed help to just go there and ask.”
“Where is it, exactly?” Altaїr almost couldn’t believe it. If only all problems could be so easily solved.
Michael pointed hesitantly. “Just about four miles north, master. But I wouldn’t advise it, I’ve heard very little about it. I only know of it.”
“When one’s life is at stake, he is usually willing to try anything to save it.” Without waiting for a response from the concerned apprentice, Altaїr spurred his horse and rode north, out of sight. Michael watched from the window of his homestead.
“But what if, in so doing, you doom yourself further…?”
Chapter 3
Altaїr rode his horse impatiently toward the small village his apprentice spoke of. For a fleeting moment, he almost wondered what he would find, how they could help, what they would do. But he shoved these thoughts aside and kept going.
Usually, when you travel through the wilderness, the paths are twisted or fork at unexpected times and one usually gets lost very easily. But Altaїr found he never got lost, not once. The path was well-worn and easily visible, even though Michael had said the village was relatively new. There were very few forks in the road as well, just straight riding. There were turns, to be certain, but not turnoffs. It was as if this road were made to be impossible to get lost on. Altaїr was confused, but shoved this aside as well, deciding it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.
Just a few more moments of uneventful riding saw Altaїr at the edge of a small village with two or three people in the streets that barely glanced up at the assassin when he rode slowly past them. Finally, he stopped by a woman who was weaving a basket while sitting in front of her house, not a care in the world. He got off his horse, tied it to a post, and walked up to the woman. She looked up at him with a slight smile and a motherly look that made Altaїr feel almost comfortable.
“Pardon me, miss,” he said as politely as he could. “I was told someone could help me here?”
“You are the Flying One, yes?”
This startled Altaїr a bit. He hesitated before replying with a cautious “Yes”.
“We’ve been expecting you, sir. The one who can help you is just up the path, in the homestead in front of you,” she said, smiling and pointing in the indicated direction. Sure enough, there was a medium-sized house about 30 feet directly in front of him.
“Ahem… I don’t think you understand. This is a difficult thing I need help with—“
“It is not so difficult for her,” the woman interrupted, but politely. “She has a… special touch.”
Altaїr stared a moment longer, then walked cautiously toward the house the woman pointed to. He was almost afraid of what he might find, but all the inhabitants of the village seemed friendly enough.
Before he even reached the door, an elderly woman was walking out of the opening, looking at him with squinting eyes, stepping with a gait that made Altaїr suspect she was senile. She smiled, and the wrinkles that already plagued her face grew even deeper, her eyes even smaller. Her nose was a bit crooked, she had almost no chin, she was thin as a bone, and her back was slightly hunched. She was wearing something like a hood over her head. She beckoned the assassin to come closer, and Altaїr noticed the ring finger of her left hand was missing.
She couldn’t be an assassin, thought Altaїr. She’s far too frail. I don’t see how she could possibly help me.
But his informant, Michael, had never lied to him before, so he walked forward to meet this old woman in her doorway. When she spoke, it sounded like the sands being run over by the blunt side of a blade.
“Hello there, Flying One.”
Chapter 4
Altaїr stopped dead in his tracks. This was surprising. The woman from before could have just been Michael’s contact, but this old woman shouldn’t have known who he was, unless the first woman told her, in which case they were keeping with unreliable people, which was unthinkable. Altaїr didn’t reply.
“I’ve been expecting you for some time, Son of None.” Now she had taken to using his last name. Few people knew his last name, even fewer its meaning. But she seemed to know it just as well as a brother.
“Altaїr Ibn La-Ahad, the Flying One, and the Son of None. It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said as she walked slowly closer to him, as if admiring a long-lost grandson. “I am very grateful that you destroyed those nine evil men.”
Altaїr spoke hesitantly, almost treating the old woman as an angry viper ready to strike. “You are… welcome. It wasn’t terribly difficult. I had much help.”
“Modesty is an admirable trait, but even so, the task must have been taxing indeed.” She was now standing a respectable distance from the assassin, but was still squinting up at him as if trying to get a glimpse of his features through a pair of needle eyes, and wringing her hands like washrags, as if trying to rid them of dust, but was unaware of the concept of water.
Altaїr always thought it was best to be straightforward wherever possible, and decided this was one of those times, given the circumstances of his visit. He would get it over with as quickly as possible, and be done with the place for good.
“Pardon me, but the reason I come here—“
“You come to seek aid in a special manner, yes? I just so happen to have the means to accomplish it.”
The troubled assassin paused at this. “You do? What is it? And how did you know what my dilemma was, anyway?”
She waved a hand. “Later. First, you must eat. You must be famished from your journey here.”
Altaїr wasn’t very hungry at all, and his ride here was an hour or two at the most, but for some reason, he found it difficult to argue. He just fell quietly into step behind the old woman and entered her humble house, where there were already two steaming loaves of bread and a jug of wine.
Altaїr looked around the small homestead for a moment, taking in what little there was to be taken: It was smaller than Michael’s homestead (Altaїr almost had to slouch just to walk around inside; he wondered for a moment if this is why the old woman walked the way she did) and was lightly decorated with plants of varying size and shape, and with a rather pungent smell. She motioned for him to sit down in a wooden chair by the small stone table on which the bread and wine sat, and he did, but without a word spoken between them. Altaїr took a small bite from the bread and a sip from the wine, making a note of the tastes: Nothing malignant that he could tell, just that the bread tasted unusually sweet.
The woman’s back was to him. She was stroking one of the plants, one Altaїr didn’t recognize. It looked abnormally beautiful for a desert plant, but Altaїr was by no means an agricultural expert. The silence was deafening. Altaїr decided to end it.
“Pardon me for asking, ma’am, but… what exactly do you plan to do to help me?”
“Your question is a valid and welcome one, Flying One,” she said without turning around. “Unfortunately, it is one I cannot answer at the moment.”
“Pray tell, why is that?”
“Because it is not yet time for you to know.”
Altaїr became a bit suspicious, but dismissed this quickly. She was an old woman, what could she possibly do to a young, well-trained, and well-armed assassin master? Altaїr did his best not to smile.
The assassin took a swift sip of the wine. He seemed to enjoy this wine a bit more than his usual kind, but he hadn’t had much wine at all recently. It was difficult to recall.
“Will this take very long? I must soon return to my students.”
“Your students can wait, Flying One.”
Perhaps it was the wine, but Altaїr didn’t feel it proper to argue. “Yes. They can wait a while longer.” He relaxed back into his chair, which he had mostly sat on the edge of, up until that point. Now he sits a bit further back into it, thinking about how comfortable a chair it is, for it being made of wood. Absently, he looked at his left hand, which lay on the table next to his plate. He stared for a moment at the gap where his ring finger used to be. He never thought much of that finger. In fact, he thought of his wrist knife as more of his ring finger than anything. But how odd that hand looked compared to the other. He wasn’t a vain man; quite the opposite. He didn’t care much how he looked at all. He was simply making an observation.
Altaїr suddenly began to feel a bit sleepy. He looked around a moment before he found the old woman had pulled a leaf from one of the exotic plants and was running her finger over it as if it were a kitten. Altaїr thought this odd. It was a simple plant, nothing more. What was so special about it?
He decided he was too tired to care. He was quickly becoming even sleepier; he could barely keep his eyes open. Now he was beginning to worry. He looked at his wine cup. Now that he looked properly at the side from which he drank, he could see small bits of leaf on the side before he quickly sank to the ground. He didn’t even feel the impact.
Chapter 5
Altaїr opened his eyes slowly. The sun had set: He was looking up at a starry sky, almost directly under the constellation Orion, as if he’d stopped to say hello. Altaїr didn’t want to move at first, even though a rock was burrowing its way past his robes into his skin; since he was on his back, his hood was on the ground under his head like a pillow, but that didn’t improve his comfort.
He slowly got into a sitting position and took stock of his surroundings: There was not a sign of life anywhere he could see. Just barren desert with the occasional sand dune. Not a soul.
Until he turned around. Then he sprang to his feet like a jackal and searched for a weapon, but they had all been stripped from him, even his arm knife.
The woman didn’t even turn to look at him. “Calm yourself, Flying One. You are in no danger.”
Her face was hidden under a similar hood to Altaїr’s, and she was wearing identical robes as his. She even had her own arm knife. Altaїr wondered for a moment if it was his.
The voice was subtly recognizable, as if spoken by one who had just changed voices. It sounds almost the same, but it’s not. This one was low for a female voice, silky and soft, but commanding. Altaїr straightened himself, but remained on his guard. “Who are you?” he asked her.
“You have already met me.” She turned toward him, but her face still wasn’t visible under the hood, or the darkness of night. He could just barely make out a small protrusion that was the woman’s nose, but nothing else. The moonlight reflected off of both their white robes.
He immediately thought of the woman that pointed him toward the old woman’s house, but it was best to be certain. “Have I? I think I would have recalled,” he replied. “I know every last assassin at my guild.”
“I am not in your guild, Flying One,” she replied coldly. “That is the point.”
Altaїr decided to cut to the chase. “Who are you, exactly? How do you know me? And how did I get out here?”
“I am no Oracle, sir.”
“These are not Oracle-worthy questions, so answer them.”
She sighed and crossed her arms. “You will recall the old woman who so graciously invited you into her home?” Altaїr only nodded, but he thought he understood. He didn’t think it was at all possible, however.
She continued. “My name is Ablah Amber La-Layla: Perfect Jewel of the Night. You will not find one as powerful as me.” At this she smiled, feeling proud of her name. “You are the new leader of the Assassin’s Guild, yes? After you killed your old master? I thought as much. How could I not know you? Women have been rejected from the Guild for centuries; no matter how much better we are at it than men.”
“I cannot help tradition. It’s not my place,” Altaїr replied sheepishly.
“You are the Master. You set your own place. Exceptions could have been made. I had removed my own finger before I asked! You cannot say I am not loyal. But you had one more question, yes?”
Altaїr nodded, but he was beginning to understand Ablah’s motives, if not her intents.
“You were poisoned, as you remember.” He didn’t, but he let her continue. “I brought you here myself. I’m going to teach you a lesson in equality.”
“How is this possible?” asked the assassin. “If you are what you say you are, an old woman, how do you stand before me now as you are?”
Ablah smiled. “That is a simple disguise. I appear as an old woman to those whom I don’t want to recognize me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t cover my finger.” She looked down at her missing finger. Altaїr seized the moment and rushed at her, not worrying about his weapons. He was stopped by an invisible wall that sent a strange tingling through his body before knocking him back.
Ablah looked back at him, smiling. “There is no way to escape this time, Flying One. You are caged in my invisible walls. It’s best you don’t injure yourself, or you might not come out right.”
Altaїr was becoming more worried by the moment. Not only because of the last comment, but also because he didn’t like being trapped. He had to look harder: There was always a way out, if one looked hard enough. He didn’t have a chance to expound on this, however, because the ground beneath his feet began to glow a bright yellow that almost blotted out the moon itself. Altaїr shielded his eyes, but it did no good against the light. When he looked down again, there was a circle surrounding him. Actually, it was two circles: A larger one on the outside, and a slightly smaller one inside; the resulting gap housed several characters or words that Altaїr didn’t recognize; several lines darted from the sides and crossed to form some sort of star in the center.
Altaїr looked at Ablah; she looked as if she were praying, but she was forming several complicated seals with her hands and chanting in an unknown dialect; the assassin felt the wind blowing on his face, but no sand hit it. This wind began to swirl around him, lifting him off of his feet to float in midair.
The rays from the moon seemed to brighten, and converged on Altaїr’s floating body; the stars did likewise, a thousand points coming to cover the assassin’s body with small pinpoints of light that quickly expanded to illuminate his white robes to a blinding degree as Ablah continued chanting. Altaїr began screaming purely out of the fear that had been gathering itself since his first visit to the village, but it was almost completely drowned out by Ablah’s words.
A paralysis gripped Altaїr like a vice; he lay in midair on his back with his arms outstretched, staring at the traitorous stars with wide, frightened eyes, and he stopped screaming. He couldn’t any longer. He never imagined the end would come this way, held by a witch in the middle of the desert in some sort of torture spell; he thought his end would come with the edge of a blade or tip of a dagger, possibly even the hangman’s noose or executioner’s axe. But there was nothing he could do now but wait for the pain.
Chapter 6
The pain never came. Instead there was a tightening feeling, like his flesh was drying out and was contracting on his bones, but remained well-hydrated. His muscles lost their mass so his robes seemed to grow and fold around him, and then quickly shrank along with his skin. His hair turned gray and grew slightly, so it tickled the back of his neck and his forehead. His eyes widened, not with horror, but of their own accord, the actual eye itself enlarging, and darkening in its blue hue.
His skin softened as his body hair disappeared completely and his finger nails grew ever so slightly out of his now thin fingers. His face softened as well, losing the roughness that comes from years of harsh conditions and battles and death, and becoming more delicate, losing all pockmarks and identifying features.
His waist thinned to an alarming degree while his hips flared to an equally alarming degree, and his legs thickened and the trousers he wore became skintight, his boots quickly following, and becoming more feminine as the heels rose slightly. Sweat was coming through invisible pores on the assassin’s forehead, running past his thin eyebrows and into his eyes, causing them to sting and tear up.
Two mounds appeared to rise up out of his chest, growing like cacti under a spell. A small twinge between his legs completed the transformation as he continued to lie on his back in the air, staring up at the sky, screaming silently in her head.
She was suddenly lowered to the ground and set softly on the sand, still unable to move, staring straight up, unwilling to look at herself. Ablah sauntered over like a banshee and smiled down at Altaїr.
“Now then, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Altaїr just looked at her murderously.
“Good. But I am not satisfied. I will release you for the moment so you may get acquainted with your new body, Altaїr,” Ablah said, and turned. Altaїr’s paralysis was immediately broken. “And don’t try anything silly,” Ablah continued, “The barrier hasn’t moved.”
Altaїr couldn’t move either way. The paralysis was broken, but she had never been so frightened in her life. The only parts of herself she could move was her neck and face, and then only to stare at Ablah like a criminal stares at a guard that caught him cutting purses. After what seemed like an eternity, Altaїr found the ability to stand up and slowly worked her way to her feet, only to lose balance and fall face-first into the sand. She managed to catch herself on her hands before breaking her small nose, but lost the will to try again.
“Not so easy being a woman, is it?”
Ablah had turned back around, a black goblet in her hand, smiling the smile of a person who just got revenge for a murder and was about to get away with it.
“The center of balance is different. You’ll have to learn to walk all over again. But may I say you look absolutely adorable?” Ablah’s smile changed to one of a school teacher who got a new young pupil.
Altaїr didn’t feel any better. She didn’t trust herself to speak, half afraid of what she might say; half afraid of what she might hear.
“The second part of your punishment is nigh,” she continued, waving the goblet about, a slight sloshing sound reaching Altaїr’s ears. “In this, my favorite goblet is a mixture of common cactus plants and sea water, along with a few special plants of my own. The result is a potion that causes the drinker to forget everything about him- or herself. Everything, right down to their childhood.” Altaїr didn’t have to guess what she planned to do with it.
“I have many constraints on my time, you understand, training for joining your guild and all, so let’s just—“
Before she could finish a crossbow bolt cut the air.
Chapter 7
The bolt embedded itself in Ablah’s favorite goblet, and where her ring finger would have been, had it existed. Bolt and goblet traveled for some time together before landing several meters away in the sand, spilling the contents. Altaїr and Ablah’s heads turned as one toward where the bolt came from, two pairs of eyes resting on a young man in white, holding an empty crossbow, and running toward them like a madman on a mission. Recognizing Michael immediately, Altaїr pulled up her hood and watched the apprentice pull a knife from his belt, leaping at Ablah when he got close enough.
I must remember to promote this boy, thought Altaїr, if we both survive.
Ablah managed to catch Michael under his guard with a swift punch to his kidney, causing him to stagger for a moment, but he was up in time to catch Ablah in the motion of stabbing him with her (Altaїr’s?) arm blade. In a simultaneous ring, both drew swords and began dueling.
“Come, boy, fight me! Is that all you’ve got?!” Ablah taunted, though Michael remained silent.
Altaїr, keeping to her duty, watched Michael fight and noted several things (mostly as a ploy to distract her from herself): He’s doing well at blocking and feinting, but his shunting and power were lacking. He tended to try to look flashy instead of striking like he should. They would have to work on that.
Somehow, he managed to find a way through Ablah’s guard and make a small cut on her right arm. Ablah cursed at him, striking back quickly.
Altaїr began crawling toward Michael’s fallen knife.
Michael managed to block in time, but lost some of his balance as Ablah struck again and again, until she felt a pressure at her neck and halted immediately, sweating even in the night. Altaїr held the knife as still as she could while trying to keep her balance and stop her quivering hands all at once.
Michael held an astonished look. “Master?!”
I should have known, thought Altaїr. The boy’s not a fool.
“What’s happened to you?!” Altaїr replied by jabbing Ablah with the knife, still afraid to speak. Michael evidently didn’t understand, for he looked even more confused than before.
“It was me!” Ablah suddenly blurted, still smiling. “It was all ME! You master is learning a lesson in equality, and you’re going to join him!” Altaїr jabbed her again.
“What?”
Ablah’s smile disappeared and she rolled her eyes. “Fool. Has everyone completely forgotten the power of the Mystic Arts?!” A brief pause. “I can’t believe it! Man is so consumed by his lust for wealth and power he has forgotten the ultimate power!”
“Ultimate power?” Michael interrupted. “There is no such thing as an ‘ultimate power’.”
“Wrong, boy! This power is everywhere, and it controls everything. Destiny, even! Just look at this one cutting my throat!”
Altaїr tried to hide behind Ablah, but to no avail. Even with her hood up, she was a dead giveaway to a fellow assassin, even new blood.
Michael seemed to have given up speaking to Ablah. “What do you think we should do with her, Master?”
Altaїr’s mouth remained tight shut.
“Oh, so now you’ve stolen my master’s voice as well?”
“No. I just gave her a new face is all.” Altaїr cringed at the pronoun.
“Then why won’t he speak?”
“She’s a woman now, boy, and you will refer to her as such.”
“I don’t follow orders from you, witch.” Altaїr’s respect for Michael went up another notch. “Just change my master back to how he was and we’ll be on our way.”
Ablah put on a false sympathetic expression. “Terribly sorry, but the spell is permanent until I say otherwise, and no matter what artificial torture you put me through, it cannot harm me.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain, witch. We have a great many ways to make people talk.” Altaїr made a point of jabbing Ablah again, smiling for the first time, but she wasn’t quite comfortable enough to remove her hood, or speak. She was only now learning balance.
Ablah seemed convinced, for she didn’t speak for some time, just looked back and forth between Altaїr and Michael nervously.
“Fine, then,” she said finally. “Take me to your guild. See how far you get with me.” Another pause. “But let it be known… I’ve kept my promise to hide you from the guards, Flying One.”
Altaїr hesitated. She did have a point there. She wasn’t certain what she looked like, but she couldn’t look much like she used to. Altaїr slowly removed the blade from Ablah’s throat, who visibly relaxed.
“Master, what are you doing?” Michael asked. “Has she struck you in the head?”
Altaїr shook her head and removed her hood, revealing her new face. She finally found the courage to speak.
“She… she has kept her promise.” Her new voice sounded alien, much higher than it should be, but not wholly unfamiliar. There was still that tinge of monotone apathy, as if she didn’t care anymore.
Michael hunched his shoulders. “Fine, then. Go lose yourself, witch.”
Epilogue
It’s been a week. Altaїr still had to get used to people staring at her. Ablah was her only real companion. Her and Michael, who was recently promoted.
There had indeed been some changes around the guild. Women were now given a fair chance at apprenticeship, if they could pass all the tests and didn’t mind the hash. Many still failed, but Ablah never complained.
The commander that had identified Altaїr before was killed the day after the Ablah incident. A kingdom-wide search has gone out for the assassin responsible. Altaїr took comfort in the fact that they would never find her. As far as looks were concerned, she was completely clean.
Michael and Ablah never truly got along, forever contesting with each other over who got to assassinate a particular target, but Altaїr managed to keep civil war from breaking out.
All was well, if not the same. Altaїr Bint La-Ahad learned from past mistakes, and learned an extra information-gathering technique, seduction, even if it wasn’t her favorite.
