the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

trinket.
‘It’s just a piece of silver …’ said Altaïr.
‘Look at it,’ insisted Al Mualim.
‘It shimmers for the briefest moment, but there’s really nothing
spectacular about it,’ said Altaïr. ‘What am I supposed to see?’
‘This “piece of silver” cast out Adam and Eve. This is the Apple. It
turned staves into snakes. Parted and closed the Red Sea. Eris used it to
start the Trojan War. And with it, a poor carpenter turned water into
wine.’
The Apple, the Piece of Eden? Altaïr looked at it doubtfully. ‘It seems
rather plain for all the power you claim it has,’ he said. ‘How does it
work?’
‘He who holds it commands the hearts and minds of whoever looks
upon it – whoever “tastes” of it, as they say.’
‘Then de Naplouse’s men …’ said Altaïr, thinking of the poor
creatures in the hospital.
‘An experiment. Herbs used to simulate its effects … To be ready for
when they held it.’
Altaïr saw it now. ‘Talal supplied them. Tamir equipped them. They
were preparing for something … But what?’
‘War,’ said Al Mualim, starkly.
‘And the others … the men who ruled the cities … They meant to
gather up their people. Make them like de Naplouse’s men.’
‘The perfect citizens. The perfect soldiers. A perfect world.’
‘Robert de Sable must never have this back,’ said Altaïr.
‘So long as he and his brothers live, they will try,’ said Al Mualim.
‘Then they must be destroyed.’