This is where I will post pages of the Codex as I find them.
The Codex was a thirty-page, personal journal written by Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, following the death of Al Mualim. It documents his explorations into the Apple of Eden he possessed, as well as offers an autobiographical view of his life and various assassination-related articles.
Who were The Ones That Came Before? What brought them here? How long ago? Centuries? Millenia? Longer still? So little remains of them... What drove them out? What of these artifacts? Messages in a bottle? Tools left behind to aid and guide us? Or do we fight for control over their refuse, giving divine purpose and meaning to little more than discarded toys?
What follows are the three great ironies of the Assassin Order: (1) Here we seek to promote peace, but murder is our means. (2) Here we seek to open the minds of men, but require obedience to a master and set of rules. (3) Here we seek to reveal the danger of blind faith, yet we are practitioners ourselves.
I have no satisfactory answer to these charges, only possibilities... Do we bend the rules in service to a greater good? And if we do, what does it say of us? That we are liars? That we are frauds? That we are weak? Every moment is spent wrestling with these contradictions and in spite of all the years I've had to reflect, still I can find no suitable answer... And I fear that one may not exist.
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Does our creed provide the answer, then? That one may be two things – opposite in every way – simultaneously? And why not? Am I not proof? We of noble intentions, possessed of barbaric means? We who celebrate the sanctity of life and then promptly take it from those we deem our enemies?
I have spent days with the artifact now. Or has it been weeks? Months? I can no longer be certain...The others come from time to time – offering food or distraction. They say I should separate myself from these studies... Malik has even suggested I abandon them entirely. But I am not yet ready to turn away. This Apple of Eden will be understood. It must be...Is it a weapon? Is it a catalogue? Is it somehow both? "He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow..." The philosophy of such a statement I can understand... But for it to be truth – literally true? A society that waged wars with ideas and information in place of steel and swords...Its function is simple. Elementary, even. Dominion. Control. But the process... the methods and means it employs... THESE are fascinating. Those subjected to its glow are promised all that they desire. It asks only one thing in return: complete and total obedience. And who can truly refuse? It is temptation incarnate. I remember my own moment of weakness when confronted by Al Mualim, my confidence shaken by his words. He, who had been like a father, was now revealed to be my greatest enemy. Just the briefest flicker of doubt was all he needed to creep into my mind. But I vanquished his phantoms – restored my self confidence – and sent him from this world. I freed myself. But now I wonder... Did I really? For here I sit – desperate to understand that which I swore to destroy. This is why: The Apple has a tale to tell. I sense the flickers of something – great and dangerous... We are all at risk. It is my duty to do something about it. I must not – cannot – turn away until I've found the truth.
End
