Assassin's Creed: Renaissance (45 page)

Beyond the gate he found himself in a narrow courtyard, at the other side of which was yet another gate. It seemed to be unguarded, but as he approached the lever at its side which he assumed would open it, a cry went up from the ramparts above: ‘
Stop the intruder!
‘ Glancing behind him, he saw the gate through which he had entered slamming shut. He was caught in that cramped enclave!

He threw himself on the lever controlling the second gate as the archers ranging themselves above him prepared to fire, and just managed to dash through it as the arrows clattered to the ground behind him.

Now he was inside the Vatican. Moving catlike through its labyrinthine corridors, and melting into the shadows at the merest hint of now alerted guards passing, for he could not afford confrontation which might give his position away, he found himself at last in the vast cave of the Sistine Chapel.

Baccio Pontelli’s masterpiece, built for the Assassins’ old enemy Pope Sixtus IV and completed twenty years earlier, loomed around and above him, the many candles lit at this time just penetrating the gloom. Ezio could make out wall paintings by Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Perugino and Rosselli, but the great vault of the ceiling had as yet to be decorated.

He had entered by a stained-glass window which was undergoing repair, and he balanced on an interior embrasure overlooking the vast hall. Below him, Alexander VI, in full golden regalia, was conducting the Mass, reading from the Gospel of San Giovanni.

‘
In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in pricipio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum fact sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil quid factum est…
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth…’

Ezio watched until the service came to its conclusion and the congregation began filing out, leaving the Pope alone with his cardinals and attendant priests. Did the Spaniard know Ezio was there? Did he plan some kind of confrontation? Ezio did not know, but he could see that here was a golden opportunity to rid the world of this most menacing Templar. Bracing himself, he threw himself outwards and downwards off the embrasure to land close to the Pope in a perfect crouch, springing up immediately, before the man or his attendants could have time to react or call out, and driving his spring-blade hard and deep into Alexander’s swollen body. The Pope sank soundlessly to the ground at Ezio’s feet and lay still.

Ezio stood over him, breathing hard. ‘I thought… I thought I was beyond this. I thought I could rise above vengeance. But I can’t. I’m just a man. I’ve waited too long, lost too much… and you are a canker in the world that should be cut out for everyone’s good –
Requiescat in pace
,
sfortunato
.’

He turned to go, but then a peculiar thing happened. The Spaniard’s hand curled round the Staff he had been holding. Immediately, it began to glow with a brilliant white light, and as it did so the whole great cavern of a chapel seem to whirl round and round. And the Spaniard’s cold cobalt eyes snapped open.

‘I’m not quite ready to rest in peace, you pitiful wretch,’ said the Spaniard. There was a mighty flash of light and the attendant priests and cardinals, together with those members of the congregation who were still inside the chapel, collapsed, crying out in pain, as curious thin beams of translucent light, smoke-like in the way they curled, emerged from their bodies and travelled into the glowing Staff which the Pope, now standing, held in a grip of steel.

Ezio ran at him, but the Spaniard shouted, ‘No you don’t, Assassin!’ and swung the Staff at him. It crackled in a strange way, like lightning, and Ezio felt himself thrown across the chapel, over the bodies of the moaning and writhing priests and people. Rodrigo Borgia rapped his Staff briskly on the floor by the altar and more smoke-like energy flowed into it – and him – from their hapless bodies.

Ezio picked himself up and confronted his archenemy once more.

‘You are a demon!’ cried Rodrigo. ‘How is it that you can resist?’ Then he lowered his eyes and saw that the pouch at Ezio’s side, which still contained the Apple, was glowing brightly.

‘I see!’ said Rodrigo, his eyes glowing like coals. ‘You have the Apple! How convenient! Give it to me
now
!’

‘
Vai a farti fottere!
’

Rodrigo laughed. ‘Such vulgarity! But always the fighter! Just like your father. Well, rejoice, my child, for you will see him again
soon
!’

He swung his Staff again and the crozier’s hook smashed against the scar on the back of Ezio’s left hand. A shock thrilled through Ezio’s veins and he staggered back, but did not fall.

‘You
will
give it me,’ snarled Rodrigo, closing in.

Ezio thought fast. He knew what the Apple was capable of and he had to take a risk now or die in the attempt. ‘As you wish,’ he replied. He withdrew the Apple from his pouch and held it aloft. It flashed so powerfully that the entire lofty chapel seemed for a moment to be illuminated by bright sunlight, and when the gloom of the candlelight returned, Rodrigo saw eight Ezios ranged before him.

But he remained unruffled. ‘It can make copies of you!’ he said. ‘How impressive. Hard to tell which is the real you, and which a chimera – but that’d be hard at the best of times, and if you think such a cheap conjuring trick is going to save you, think again!’

Rodrigo swung out at the clones, and each time he hit one, it vanished in a puff of smoke. The ghost-Ezios pranced and feinted, lunging at the now worried-looking Rodrigo, but they could do no harm to the Spaniard other than to distract him. Only the real Ezio was able to land any blows – but they were minor glances, such was the power of the Staff, that he was unable to get close enough to the vile Pope. But Ezio quickly realized that the fight was sapping Rodrigo’s strength. By the time the seven ghosts were gone, the repulsive pontiff was tired and out of breath. Madness imparts an energy to the body that few other things can, but despite the powers the Staff imbued in him, Rodrigo was after all a fat old man of seventy-two, and suffering from syphilis. Ezio put the Apple back in its pouch.

Breathless after the fight with the phantoms, the Pope sank to his knees. Ezio, almost equally breathless because his phantoms had necessarily used his energy to disport themselves, stood over him. Looking up, Rodrigo clutched his Staff. ‘You will not take this from me,’ he said.

‘It’s all over, Rodrigo. Put the Staff down and I will grant you a swift and merciful death.’

‘How generous,’ sneered Rodgrio. ‘I wonder if you’d give up in such a supine way if things were the other way round?’

Summoning his strength, the Pope rose abruptly to his feet, at the same time slamming the foot of his Staff against the ground. In the dimness beyond them, the priests and people groaned again and new energy whipped from the staff against Ezio, hitting him like a sledgehammer and sending him flying.

‘How’s that for starters?’ said the Pope, with an evil grin. He walked over to where Ezio lay winded. Ezio started to take the Apple out again but too late, for Rodrigo crushed his hand with his boot and the Apple rolled away. The Borgia stooped to pick it up.

‘At last!’ he said, smiling. ‘And now… to deal with you!’

He held the Apple up and it glowed banefully. Ezio seemed as if frozen, trapped, for he was unable to move. The Pope leaned over him in fury, but then his expression calmed, seeing his adversary completely in his power. From his robes he drew a short-sword, and, looking at his prostrate foe, stabbed him deliberately in the side, with a look of pity mingled with disdain.

But the pain of the wound seemed to weaken the power of the Apple. Ezio lay prone, but watched through a haze of pain as Rodrigo, thinking himself secure, turned and faced Botticelli’s fresco of
The Temptation of Christ
. Standing close to it, he raised the Staff. Cosmic energy arced out of it to embrace the fresco, a part of which swivelled opened to reveal a secret door, through which Rodrigo passed after casting one last triumphant look back at his fallen enemy. Ezio watched helplessly as the door closed behind the Pope, and only had time to fix the location of the door before he passed out.

He came to, he knew not how much later, but the candles were burnt low and the priests and people had vanished. He found that although he was lying in a pool of his own blood, the wound Rodrigo had delivered had cut into his side and touched no fatal organ. He got up shakily, leaning against a wall for support and breathing deeply and regularly until his head cleared. He was able to staunch his wound with strips torn from his shirt. He prepared his Codex weapons – the double-blade on the left forearm, the poison-blade on the right – and approached the Botticelli fresco.

He remembered that the door was concealed in the figure, on the right-hand side, of a woman bearing a fardel of wood to the sacrifice. Stepping close, he examined the painting minutely until he had traced the barely visible outline. Then he looked carefully at the details of the painting both to the right and left of the woman. Near her feet was the figure of a child with an upraised right hand, and it was in the tips of the fingers of this hand that Ezio found the button that triggered the door. As it opened, he slipped through it, and wasn’t surprised that it snapped shut behind him immediately. He would not think of retreating now in any case.

He found himself in what looked like a catacomb corridor, but, as he cautiously advanced, the rough walls and dirt floor gave way to smoothly dressed stone and a marble floor that would not have disgraced a palace. And the walls glowed with a pale, supernatural light.

He was weak from his wound but he forced himself onwards, fascinated, and more awed than scared, though he was still on his guard, for he knew the Borgia had passed this way.

At last the passageway opened into a large room. The walls were smooth as glass and glowed with the same blue iridescence he’d seen earlier, only here it was more intense. In the centre of the room was a pedestal, and on it rested, in holders clearly designed for them, the Apple and the Staff.

The rear wall of the room was punctuated with hundreds of evenly spaced holes, and before it stood the Spaniard, desperately pushing and poking at the wall, oblivious of Ezio’s arrival.

‘Open, damn you,
open
!’ he cried in frustration and rage.

Ezio came forward. ‘It’s over, Rodrigo,’ he said. ‘Give it up. It doesn’t make sense any more.’

Rodrigo spun round to face him.

‘No more tricks,’ said Ezio, releasing his own daggers and throwing them down. ‘No more ancient artefacts. No more weapons. Now… let’s see what you’re made of,
Vecchio
.’

A smile slowly suffused Rodrigo’s debauched and broken face. ‘All right – if that’s how you want to play it.’

He shook off his heavy outer robe and stood in his tunic and hose. A fat, but compact and powerful body, over which little bolts of lightning raced – gained from the power of the Staff. And he stepped forward and landed the first blow – a vicious uppercut to Ezio’s jaw that sent him reeling. ‘Why couldn’t your father leave well enough alone?’ asked Rodrigo sorrowfully as he raised his boot to kick Ezio hard in the gut. ‘He just had to keep pursuing it, though… And you’re just like him. All you Assassins are like mosquitoes to be swatted. I wish to God that idiot Alberti had been able to hang you along with your kinsmen twenty-seven years ago.’

‘The evil resides not with us but with
you
, the Templars,’ rejoined Ezio, spitting out a tooth. You thought the people – ordinary, decent folk – were yours to play with, to do with as you pleased.’

‘But my dear fellow,’ said Rodrigo, getting a body-blow in under Ezio’s ribs, ‘that is what they are there for. Scum to be ruled and used. Always were, always will be.’

‘Stand off,’ panted Ezio. ‘This fight is immaterial. A more vital one awaits us. But tell me first, what do you even want with the Vault that lies beyond that wall? Don’t you already have all the power you could possibly need?’

Rodrigo looked surprised. ‘Don’t you know what lies within? Hasn’t the great and powerful Order of the Assassins figured it out?’

His torvid tone stopped Ezio in his tracks. ‘What are you talking about?’

Rodrigo’s eyes glittered. ‘It’s God! It’s
God
who dwells within the Vault!’

Ezio was too astonished to reply immediately. He knew that he was dealing with a dangerous madman. ‘Listen, do you really expect me to believe that
God
lives beneath the Vatican?’

‘Well, isn’t that a slightly more logical location than a kingdom on a cloud? – Surrounded by singing angels and cherubim? All that makes for a lovely image, but the
truth
is far more interesting.’

‘And what does God do down here?’

‘He waits to be set free.’

Ezio took a breath. ‘Let’s say I believe you – what do you think He’ll do if you manage to open that door?’

Rodrigo smiled. ‘I don’t care. It certainly isn’t His approval I’m after – just His power!’

‘And do you think He’ll give it up?’

‘Whatever lies behind that wall won’t be able to resist the combined strength of the Staff and the Apple.’ Rodrigo paused. ‘They were made for felling gods – whatever religion they belong to.’

‘But the Lord our God is meant to be all-knowing. All-powerful. Do you really think a couple of ancient relics can harm him?’