Assassin's Creed: Revelations Read Online Free PDF

last—not too soon for the impatient Ezio—the winds and the seas abated and were replaced with the fine weather of spring. Ma’Mun had made all the arrangements for his onward passage to Crete, and the same ship would take him farther—as far as Cyprus. This vessel was a warship, a four-masted kogge , the Qutaybah , with one of its lower decks armed with a line of ten cannon on each side, and more guns in emplacements in the hull fore and aft. In addition to lateen sails, she was square-rigged, European-style, on the mainmast and mizzenmast; and there was an oar deck below the cannon, thirty oars to a side.
    Chained to one of them was the Berber captain Ezio had tangled with on the Anaan .
     
     
    “You will be free from the need to defend yourself on this ship, effendi ,” Ma’Mun told Ezio.
    “I admire it. It has something of the European design about it.”
    “Our Sultan Bayezid admires much that is gracious and useful in your culture,” replied Ma’Mun. “We can learn much from each other if we try.”
    Ezio nodded.
    “The Qutaybah carries our Athens envoy to a conference at Nicosia, and will dock at Larnaka in twenty days. The captain stops at Heraklion only to take on water and supplies.” He paused. “And I have something for you . . .”
    They were seated, drinking sharbat , in Ma’Mun’s office in the port. The Turk now turned to a huge iron-bound chest that stood against the far wall, taking from it a map. “This is precious, as all maps are, but it is a special gift from me to you. It is a map of Cyprus drawn up by Piri Reis himself. You will have time there—” He held up his hands as Ezio began to object, as politely as he could. The farther east you traveled, the less urgency there seemed to be about time. “I know! I am aware of your impatience to reach Syria, but the kogge will only take you so far, and we must arrange your onward transport from Larnaka. Fear not. You saved the Anaan . We will be suitably grateful for that act. No one will get you to your destination faster than we.”
    Ezio unrolled the map and examined it. It was a fine, detailed work. He thought that if he was indeed obliged to spend time on that island, he knew from clues he had already picked up in his father’s archives that Cyprus was not without interest to the Assassins, in the history of their eternal struggle with the Templars, and that it could well be that there he would find clues that might help him.
    He would make good use of his time at Cyprus, but he hoped he would not have to tarry there long, effectively controlled as it was by the Templars, whatever appearances might be to the contrary.
     
     
    But it was to be a longer journey than anyone might have anticipated. Hardly had they set sail from Crete after their brief landing at Heraklion—a matter of no more than three days—than the winds began to rage again. Southerly this time, fierce and warm still from their long journey out of North Africa. The Qutayah battled them bravely, but by degrees she was beaten back north up the Aegean, fighting her retreat through the tangle of islands of the Dodecanese. It was a week before the storms abated, not before claiming the lives of five mariners and an uncounted number of galley prisoners, who drowned at their oars. At last, the ship put into Chios for a refit. Ezio dried his gear and cleaned his equipment of any rust. The metal of his special weapons had never shown the least sign of tarnish in all the years he had had them. One of the many mysterious properties they had, which Leonardo had attempted to explain to him in vain.
    Three precious months had been lost before the Qutaybah at last limped into the harbor of Larnaka. The envoy, who’d lost twenty pounds on the voyage, through seasickness and vomiting, and who’d long since missed his conference, made immediate arrangements to travel back to Athens by the most direct route, traveling overland as far as he could.
    Ezio wasted no time in looking