MEMORY START
The night the lagoon breathed mist over Venice, I found myself standing on the edge of the Doge’s Palace, the city a shimmer of quiet firelight below. Bells tolled from San Marco, their echoes breaking against the water like old prayers, and in that moment, I wondered how many walls I had already scaled, how many locks I had broken, and yet how little I truly understood about what I was meant to open.
“Access,” Leonardo had called it. ‘A door is only as dangerous as what it lets in,’ he’d said. And that night, I meant to open one that had been closed for centuries.
I. The Whisper Beneath the Stones
The clue had come from Leonardo’s sketches — a pattern hidden in the Codex pages recovered from Tuscany and Forlì. One page, written in Altaïr’s careful hand, spoke of a chamber beneath the city where the air itself remembers. The words matched the geometry of an ancient plan Leonardo had unearthed from Venetian archives — a blueprint of forgotten catacombs beneath the Basilica di San Marco. A vault sealed during the fall of Byzantium, now guarded by the Templars under the guise of ecclesiastical preservation.
That was where I would go. Not for gold, nor glory, but to seek what Altaïr had once guarded — the secrets of the First Civilization, and perhaps, a fragment of the truth our Order sought to protect.
The Brotherhood called it access to the past.
The Templars called it control of the future.
To me, it was still a mystery.
II. The Masks We Wear
Venice that night was alive with masks — a feast of fools in silks and laughter, their colors spilling like paint through the narrow calles. The Templars hid among them easily; power rarely wears armor when gold and charm serve better.
I moved through them as one of their own, a mask of white and gold concealing my face, my steps silent, my blade hidden beneath velvet sleeves. Every Assassin must learn to walk unseen, but in Venice, even the seen are blind.
I met Leonardo in a shadowed arcade by the water’s edge. He carried a small case of instruments and a lantern wrapped in crimson cloth. His eyes, ever bright with curiosity, betrayed the worry of a friend who knows too much.
“Ezio,” he whispered, “this entrance you seek—beneath the Basilica—it was not meant for men to find.”
“Then it was meant for me,” I said with a smile I didn’t feel.
He sighed, brushing dust from his coat. “There are seals. Ancient ones. The air there—Leon Battista Alberti wrote of it—kills torches and memory alike. If you go there, be quick. The vault opens only to a pattern. Altaïr wrote that its code lies not in numbers, but in faith.”
“Faith,” I repeated. “A dangerous thing to measure.”
III. Descent
After midnight, I slipped through the basilica’s eastern transept, where scaffolds clung to marble like ribs. The mosaics glowed in candlelight, their golden tesserae reflecting Christ and saints above, but I had no prayer for them. Beneath their feet, beneath this temple of light, was a labyrinth built by those who feared what light reveals.
A false column in the crypt concealed the mechanism. I found it with the tip of my hidden blade, tracing an indentation shaped like an eagle’s talon. With a push, stone shifted, and a breath of stale air rose from below — ancient, heavy, like the exhale of time itself.
The passage led down, spiraling through damp corridors etched with Latin prayers and Greek inscriptions long forgotten. Rats scattered. Water dripped in a rhythm that echoed my heartbeat. At last, I reached a door of brass, tarnished but unbroken. Across its surface, the words:
ACCESSUS VERITATIS NON DONUM EST, SED IUDICIUM.
(Access to truth is not a gift, but a judgment.)
I placed my palm upon the seal. It was cold as death. Then the mechanism within stirred.
IV. The Vault
The chamber beyond was vast, a cathedral turned inside out. Pillars of obsidian rose into shadow, their surfaces etched with lines of light like veins of fire. The walls pulsed faintly — alive, almost — as if responding to my presence. At the center stood a pedestal, circular and smooth, its edges inscribed with the symbol of the Brotherhood — the Eagle’s mark — though older, purer, carved with reverence beyond human hand.
When I stepped closer, the floor glowed beneath me. A whisper passed through the air, a language not heard but felt — syllables that moved through the bones like music. The pedestal lit with sigils that formed, rearranged, and dissolved — a pattern seeking completion.
It demanded something. Not a key of metal, but of mind.
I remembered Leonardo’s words: “Faith.”
So I spoke, not to gods, but to the Creed.
“Nothing is true,” I whispered.
“Everything is permitted.”
Light answered.
The sigils aligned, forming a spiral of gold that sank inward — and the pedestal opened. Inside lay a fragment of crystal, no larger than my palm, its surface alive with faint symbols of the Isu. It shone with memory, but not like the Apple’s cruel brilliance. This light was gentler — blue, like the sea before dawn.
When I touched it, the chamber trembled.
V. The Memory Within
The world dissolved.
I saw not Venice, but another city — older, immense, its towers shining like mirrors. Beings walked there of light and metal, their voices layered in harmony. One stood apart, her gaze fixed upon the horizon where storm clouds gathered.
“They seek access,” she said, her tone a mix of wonder and dread. “Not understanding that to open is to divide.”
Another answered: “We built walls to contain the spark. They would tear them down.”
Then darkness — and her eyes turned toward me, seeing me as if across eternity.
“You walk our echoes,” she said. “Tell them — access is not freedom. It is responsibility.”
The vision shattered.
I fell to the ground, gasping, the crystal dim now in my hand.
VI. The Shadow of Faith
When I rose, the chamber’s light had faded to silence. Yet I was not alone. From the entrance, footsteps echoed — soft, measured, purposeful. I knew that rhythm. The Templars.
Three men entered, cloaked in crimson. At their head, a figure whose face I recognized even before the hood fell — Antonio Maffei’s younger brother, Carlo, once a friar of San Giorgio, now a Templar of Venice.
“So it is true,” he said, his voice like velvet over steel. “You are the Auditore wraith who steals the Codex pages. You trespass upon the foundation of God.”
“I trespass upon your lies,” I replied, drawing my blade. “This place does not belong to you.”
He smiled. “Everything belongs to those who can access it.”
At his signal, his guards attacked. Steel clashed in the dark — echoes like thunder. I moved through them with the dance I had learned from years of loss: parry, strike, turn, disappear. One fell. Then another. Carlo drew his sword, gilded and curved.
He fought with the precision of faith — each blow measured, each breath a prayer. But faith is not truth. I disarmed him with a twist and pressed my blade to his throat.
“You mistake access for ownership,” I said.
“And you mistake secrecy for virtue,” he spat. “We both serve gods we do not understand.”
His words lingered as I withdrew the blade. He fell, blood darkening the ancient floor.
I took the crystal, wrapped it in cloth, and left that place behind.
VII. Leonardo’s Question
At dawn, I returned to Leonardo’s workshop. He had been awake all night, surrounded by papers, as if his mind could not rest until it knew what my heart had seen.
“You found it,” he said, eyes widening as I placed the wrapped crystal before him. “What does it contain?”
I hesitated. “A memory. Of those who came before.”
“And what did they say?”
I looked toward the window, where light touched the canals. “They warned us.”
Leonardo leaned forward, his fingers trembling above the relic. “Of what?”
“That access without understanding leads to ruin. They spoke of division — of men who open doors not to share the light, but to rule it.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze distant. “Then perhaps it is not access we should seek, but readiness.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But the Templars will not wait for readiness.”
He smiled sadly. “Nor will men like you.”
VIII. The Trial of Truth
Weeks passed. I carried the memory of that vault like a scar. The crystal’s light had faded, but in quiet moments I felt it pulse faintly, as if reminding me that knowledge is not owned, only borrowed.
One night, while crossing the rooftops of Venice, I saw fires burning along the docks. A Templar convoy — led by a Venetian noble known to trade relics for power. I followed them to a warehouse near the Arsenal. Inside, they had gathered artifacts — Codex fragments, relics of Altaïr, even copies of Leonardo’s blueprints.
They sought to recreate the vault’s mechanism.
Without thought, I struck — moving through shadow, a whisper of death among their greed. When the last man fell, I found a single phrase written across the wall:
“Access is dominion.”
I burned it.
The flames rose, painting the night with gold and ash. I watched them climb until the stars themselves seemed to burn.
IX. The Creed’s Reflection
Later, I returned to Monteriggioni. My uncle Mario greeted me in the courtyard, his laughter echoing like it always had, but he saw the distance in my eyes.
“You have seen something, nipote,” he said. “Something that makes you quiet.”
“I have seen what lies beneath faith,” I answered. “And it frightens me.”
We sat in silence for a while. The night was still, save for the wind through olive trees.
“You know,” he said finally, “when I was your age, I thought the Creed was about strength — about striking against tyranny. But it is not. It is about balance. Access to power without wisdom is just another chain.”
I nodded. “Then I must learn when to open the door — and when to leave it closed.”
He smiled. “That is the lesson every Assassin must learn — and few ever do.”
X. Revelation
Months later, Leonardo called for me again. He had studied the fragment in secret, mapping its design, tracing its energy patterns with ink and mirror. He had found something new — a second vault, deep beneath Florence, connected by symbols I had once seen on Altaïr’s Codex.
“It responds to you,” he said. “To your blood. It wants to be known.”
“Then I will go.”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Every lock has its season. Access too soon, and you lose the lesson within.”
I laughed. “When did you become the philosopher?”
“When you stopped being the student,” he said with a smile.
XI. Epilogue: The Door Within
Years later — after Monteriggioni fell, after I stood before the Apple, after Minerva’s voice reached through the centuries to warn us — I often thought back to that vault beneath San Marco. To the light that spoke not of dominion, but of responsibility. I have opened many doors since, and closed many more.
But I have learned this: Access is never about permission. It is about purpose.
To see what others cannot, to walk where others fear, is not privilege — it is burden.
And the more I access, the more I understand that nothing we open truly belongs to us.
The First Ones called it knowledge.
We call it truth.
But truth, like light, blinds those who stare too long.
So I pass this memory now to those who come after — not as a guide, but as a warning.
Do not seek access for power.
Seek it to understand what must be protected.
Requiescat in pace.
MEMORY END
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