the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

Abbas looked concerned. He pulled Maria closer to him, using her as
a shield. Blood poured from where he’d nicked her with the knife. At a
nod from Abbas the guards loosened their grip on Altaïr, who reached
for the Apple, bringing it from within his robe.
Swami reached for it. Touched it.
And then, very quietly, so that only Altaïr could hear, he said, ‘I told
Sef it was you who ordered his death. He died believing his own father
had betrayed him.’
The Apple was glowing and Altair had failed to control himself.
Swami, his hand on the Apple, suddenly tautened, his eyes popping
wide.
Then his head was tilting to one side, his body shifting and writhing
as though it were operated by some force inside. His jaws opened but no
words came out. The inside of his mouth glowed gold. His tongue
worked within it. Then, compelled by the Apple, he stepped away, and
all watched as his hands went to his face and he began to tear at the
flesh there, gouging deep trenches in it with his fingernails. Blood ran
from the churned skin and still he mauled himself, as though he were
attacking dough, ripping at the skin of his cheek and tearing a long flap
from it, wrenching at one ear, until it dangled from the side of his face.
Altaïr felt the power coursing through him, as though it leaped from
the Apple and spread like a disease through his veins. As though it fed
off his hatred and his need for revenge, then flowed from the Apple into
Swami. Altaïr felt all of this as an exquisite mix of pleasure and pain that
threatened to lift him off his feet – that made his head feel as if it might
expand and explode, the sensation at once wonderful and terrible.
So wonderful and terrible that he did not hear Maria screaming to