Looking down at himself, Altaïr shook his head. It was a question that had been asked many times, not least by him. "I do not know," he answered on an exhale. "Since I arrived in the fountain, nearly dying as I reached the surface, I have been this age once more. I am glad I'm not the age I appear to be. When I was this young, I was not a man worth knowing."

The look he gave Desmond said clearly that he knew that was the age he referred to.

"Much of my learning came too late. But had it come sooner, there is no way to know what would have happened. What Rashid would have placed in motion."