the-secret-crusade-oliver-bowden

8
And it was. For a few precious moments when he was dead, Altaïr was at
peace.
Then … then he was coming round, gradually recovering a sense of
himself and of where he was.
He was on his feet. How could he be on his feet? Was this death, the
afterlife? Was he in Paradise? If so, it looked very much like Al Mualim’s
quarters. Not only that, but Al Mualim was present. Standing over him,
in fact, watching him with an unreadable gaze.
‘I’m alive?’ Altaïr’s hands went to where the knife had been driven
into his stomach. He expected to find a ragged hole and feel wet blood
but there was nothing. No wound, no blood. Even though he’d seen it.
Felt it. He’d felt the pain …
Hadn’t he?
‘But I saw you stab me,’ he managed, ‘felt death’s embrace.’
Al Mualim was inscrutable in return. ‘You saw what I wanted you to
see. And then you slept the sleep of the dead. The womb. That you might
awake and be reborn.’
Altaïr shook a fog away from his mind. ‘To what end?’
‘Do you remember, Altaïr, what it is the Assassins fight for?’
Still trying to readjust, he replied, ‘Peace, in all things.’
‘Yes. In all things. It is not enough to end the violence one man