Oliver Bowden: Brotherhood

The memory of what had just passed in the Vault came back to him, great surges of recollection overwhelming his consciousness. There had been a vision, an encounter with a strange goddess-for there was no other way of describing the being-whom he now knew as Minerva-the Roman goddess of Wisdom. She had shown him both the distant past and the far future in such a way as to make him loathe the responsibility that the knowledge he had gained had placed on his shoulders.

And whom could he share it with? How could he explain any of it? It all seemed so unreal.

All he knew for sure after his experience-better call it an ordeal-was that the fight was not yet over. Perhaps one day there would be a time when he could return to his hometown of Florence and settle down with his books, drinking with his friends in winter and hunting with them in autumn, chasing girls in spring, and overseeing the harvests on his estates in summer.

But this was not it.

In his heart he knew that the Templars and all the evil they represented were not finished. In them he was pitted against a monster with more heads than the Hydra and, like that beast, which had taken no less a man than Hercules to slay, all but immortal.

"Ezio!"

His uncle's voice was harsh, but served to snap him out of the reverie that had him in its clutches. He had to get a grip. He had to think clearly.

There was a fire raging in Ezio's head. He said his name to himself, as a kind of reassurance: I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Strong, a master of the traditions of the Assassin.

He went over the ground again: He didn't know whether or not he'd been dreaming. The teaching and the revelations of the strange goddess in the Vault had shaken his beliefs and assumptions to the core. It was as if Time itself had been stood on its head. Emerging from the Sistine Chapel, where he had left the evil Pope, Alexander VI, apparently dying, he squinted again in the harsh sunlight. There were his friends, his fellow Assassins, gathered around, their faces grave and set with grim determination.

The thought pursued him still: Should he have killed Rodrigo-made sure of him? He had elected not to-and the man had indeed seemed bent on taking his own life, having failed in his final goal.

But that clear voice still rang in Ezio's mind.

And there was more: A baffling force now seemed to be drawing him back to the chapel-and he sensed that there was something left undone.

Not Rodrigo. Not just Rodrigo. Though he would finish him now!

Something else!

"What is it?" Mario asked.

"I must return-" Ezio said, realizing afresh, and with a lurching stomach, that the game wasn't over, and that the Apple should not yet pass from his hands. As the thought struck him, he was seized with an overwhelming sense of urgency. Tearing himself free of his uncle's sheltering arms, he hurried back into the gloom. Mario, bidding the others to stay where they were and to keep watch, followed.

Ezio quickly reached the place where he'd left the dying Rodrigo Borgia-but the man wasn't there! A richly decorated papal damask cope lay in a heap on the floor, flecked with gore; but its owner was gone. Once again the hand, clad in an icy steel gauntlet, closed over Ezio's heart and seemed to crush it.

The hidden door to the Vault was, to all intents and purposes, closed, almost invisible indeed, but, as Ezio approached the point where he remembered it to have been, he found that it swung open gently at his touch. He turned to his uncle and was surprised to see fear on Mario's face.

"What's in there?" said the older man, fighting to keep his voice steady.

"The Mystery," Ezio replied.

Leaving Mario on the threshold, he walked down the dimly lit passage, hoping he was not too late, that Minerva would have foreseen this, and would show mercy. Surely Rodrigo would not have been allowed entry here. Nevertheless, Ezio kept his hidden-blade, the blade his father had bequeathed him, at the ready.

In the Vault, the great human, yet, at the same time, superhuman figures-but were they statues?-still stood, holding the Staff.

One of the Pieces of Eden.

The Staff was apparently welded to the figure that held it, and indeed as Ezio tried to pry it loose, the figure seemed to tighten its grip, glowing, as did the Runic inscriptions on the walls of the Vault.

Ezio had remembered that no human hand should ever touch the Apple unprotected. The figures then turned away and sank into the ground, leaving the Vault void of anything save the great sarcophagus and its surrounding statues.

Ezio stepped back, looking around briefly and hesitating before taking what he instinctively knew would be his final leave of this place. What was he expecting? Was he hoping that Minerva would once again manifest herself to him? But hadn't she told him all there was to tell-or at least all there was that it was safe for him to know? The Apple had been vouchsafed him. In combination with the Apple, the other Pieces of Eden would have accorded the supremacy Rodrigo craved, and Ezio understood in the fullness of his years that such united power was too dangerous for the hands of Man.

"All right?" Mario's voice, still untypically nervous, floated down to him.

"All's well," replied Ezio, making his way back to the light with a curious reluctance.

Once reunited with his uncle, Ezio wordlessly showed him the Apple.

"And the Staff?"

Ezio shook his head.

"Better in the hands of the Earth than in the hands of Man," said Mario, with immediate understanding. "But you don't need me to tell you that." He shuddered visibly. "Come on! We can't linger."

"What's the hurry?"

"Everything's the hurry. Do you think Rodrigo is just going to sit back and let us stroll out of here?"

"I left him for dead."

"Not quite the same as leaving him good and dead, is it? Come on!"

They made their way out of the Vault then, as quickly as they could; and a cold wind seemed to follow them as they did so.

"Where did the others go?" Ezio, his mind still reeling from his recent experiences, asked Mario as they made their way back to the great nave of the Sistine Chapel. The gathered Assassins were no longer there.

"I told them to go. Paola has returned to Florence. Teodora and Antonio, to Venice. We need to keep ourselves covered in all Italy. The Templars are broken but not destroyed. They will regroup if our Assassins' Brotherhood is not vigilant. Eternally vigilant. The rest of our company have gone ahead and will await us at our headquarters in Monteriggioni."

"They were keeping watch."

"So they were. But they knew when their duty was done. Ezio, there is no time to waste. We all know that." Mario's face was earnest.

"I should have made sure of Rodrigo Borgia."

"Did he harm you in the fight?"

"My armor protected me."

Mario clapped his nephew on the back. "I spoke hastily before. I think you were right to decide not to kill needlessly. I have always advised moderation. You thought him as good as dead, by his own hand. Who knows? Perhaps he was faking-or perhaps he genuinely failed to give himself a fatal dose of poison. Either way, we must deal with the situation as it is now and not waste energy pondering what we might have done. In any case, we sent you-one man against an entire army of Templars. You've done more than your part. And I am still your old uncle, and I've been worried about you. Come on, Ezio. We have to get out of here. We have work to do, and the last thing we need is to get cornered by Borgia guards."

"You wouldn't believe the things I've seen, Uncle."

"Just be sure to stay alive, then, that I may hear of them. Listen: I've stabled some horses just beyond Saint Peter's, outside the precincts of the Vatican. Once we reach them, we'll be able to make our way safely from here."