The Egyptian Brotherhood of Assassins, also known as the Hidden Ones during its early years, is the guild of Assassins located in Egypt. It is the oldest organized Assassin branch, having been co-founded by the Medjay Bayek of Siwa and his wife Aya of Alexandria in 47 BCE to fight the Order of the Ancients.
After the Ancients killed their son Khemu, the couple allied with Queen Cleopatra and the Roman Republic's consul Gaius Julius Caesar to eliminate the Order. When the two leaders eventually betrayed them for the Order, Bayek and Aya founded a secret brotherhood with the allies they had made during their journey. Bayek killed the Ancients' leader Flavius Metellus and recovered an Apple of Eden in his possession, while Aya renamed herself "Amunet" and founded another branch in Rome to assassinate Caesar.
During their early years with Bayek as their Mentor, the Hidden Ones resisted the Order's presence in the Sinai region. In 30 BCE, when the Ancients' leader and future Roman emperor Octavian conquered Egypt, Amunet convinced Cleopatra to commit suicide and took custody of her son Caesarion, who joined the Hidden Ones. In Alexandria, the Brotherhood held their last synod to establish the Creed before formally retreating to the shadows to fight the Ancients.
Throughout the centuries, as Egypt was ruled by the Roman Empire and then the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, the Hidden Ones remained active. In 870 CE, they worked with their Frankish bretren to eliminate the Snake-Eaters, a branch of the Ancients who controlled the Silk Road. In the 11th century, like the rest of the Brotherhood, the Egyptian Hidden Ones were reformed as the Assassins and continued to operate during Egypt's rule by the Ayyubid dynasty, the Mamluk Sultanate, and both the Ottoman and British Empires.
In 1794, the French Assassin Arno Dorian entrusted the Egyptian Mentor Al Mualim with an Apple of Eden to protect it from Napoleon Bonaparte. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood's efforts proved futile, as Napoleon recovered the artifact during his campaign in Egypt and Syria four years later. In 1869, the Egyptian Assassins prevented the Templar bombing of the Khedivial Opera House but failed to recover the Ankh from the Austrian Templar Art Hennighan.
History[]
Ptolemaic Egypt[]
Precursors[]
During the 2nd century BCE, a group that served as the precursors to the Assassin Brotherhood seemingly operated in Egypt, as the Rosetta Stone, issued in 196 BCE, contained sensitive information concerning the Assassins.[6]
Formation as the Hidden Ones[]
- Aya: "When we assassinate, we assassinate only those who deserve it. The few sick souls who try to control us... but they will never know who we are. Cold, calculated poets of the kill."
- Bayek: "I am fine with this. I am not a father anymore. I am not a husband. I am not a Medjay. I am a Hidden One."
- —Bayek and Aya during the inception of their Brotherhood, 46 BCE.[src]-[m]
The Egyptian Brotherhood was founded in 47 BCE by the Medjay Bayek of Siwa and his wife Aya, who had embarked on a quest for vengeance against the Order of the Ancients, which was responsible for killing their son Khemu during a failed attempt to open an Isu vault in Siwa.[7] Prior to the Brotherhood's establishment, Bayek and Aya had assassinated most of the Order's members in Egypt and allied with the exiled Queen Cleopatra, helping her become the sole ruler of Egypt and secure an alliance with the Roman general Julius Caesar.[8]
Bayek, Aya and their allies forming their Brotherhood
However, Bayek and Aya were soon betrayed by Cleopatra, who began to be influenced by the Order through her relationship with Caesar, himself an ally of the Ancients. Furious and disillusioned, the couple gathered the allies they had made during their quest—the mercenary Phoxidas, the poet and Aya's cousin Phanos, the High Priest Pasherenptah, and the huntress Tahira—and held a meeting in Alexandria to discuss action against the Order, Cleopatra, and Caesar.[9]
During the meeting, Bayek realized that he had been mistaken to fight solely for vengeance, which had only made the Order stronger, and resolved to form a secret organization that would protect Egypt and its people from the shadows. His allies supported his decision and toasted to the newly-formed Brotherhood, while Aya decided to investigate the tomb of Alexander the Great after realizing that the Order had shown much interest in it.[9]
Bayek accompanied her and the couple found their ally Apollodorus inside, mortally wounded by the Order's leaders Flavius Metellus and Lucius Septimius. After Apollodorus revealed that Flavius had stolen Alexander's Staff of Eden, as well as an Apple of Eden entrusted to Apollodorus by Aya,[9] the Medjay followed Flavius and Septimius' trail to Siwa. There, they discovered that the two Ancients had used the Pieces of Eden to unlock the entrance to the Isu vault, which contained a holographic map of the world.[10]
Bayek and Aya parting ways
Deciding to eliminate the Ancients and recover the Pieces of Eden, Bayek killed Flavius in Cyrenaica and retrieved the Apple, while Aya followed Septimius to Alexandria.[10] However, Aya was unable to eliminate Septimius, who fled to Rome with the Staff, and decided to recruit more members to the Brotherhood to fight the Order's influence in Rome. She recruited the Roman senators Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, who opposed Caesar, and informed Bayek of her decision to leave Egypt.[11]
Realizing they could never return to their old lives and that the Brotherhood was their new destiny, Bayek and Aya named their group the Hidden Ones and vowed to defend the people's free will from tyrants. They then agreed to separate and went their own ways, with Aya heading to Rome to establish her own Brotherhood while Bayek stayed in Egypt.[11]
The Hidden Ones in Memphis
Over the following years, Bayek built up the Egyptian Brotherhood as its Mentor, establishing a bureau in Memphis and recruiting additional members,[12] including his friend Kensa.[13] The Hidden Blade became the iconic weapon of the Hidden Ones while their insignia was modeled after an eagle skull that had belonged to Bayek's late son Khemu. The Brotherhood's members amputated their left ring finger like Bayek had accidentally done, to prove their faith in his cause.[12]
Early activities[]
One of the first known actions of the Egyptian Hidden Ones was their opposition to the Sect of the Ibis Reborn, a cult led by the priest Menkhtu, a former follower of the late Order of the Ancients member Medunamun. After Menkhtu failed to access the Isu complex underneath the Great Pyramid of Giza, he and his followers were killed by the Hidden Ones, putting an end to their plans to conquer Egypt.[14]
The Hidden Ones also targeted Habibah, an Order member who worked as a doctor in Memphis and possessed one half of an Isu dagger once wielded by the Isu Vejovis. After making several failed attempts on her life, Habibah relocated to the Temple of Philae, where she was eventually killed by the Hidden One Khepri, who was secretly a Sage of Vejovis. Recovering the dagger, Khepri was subsequently sent to Mesopotamia to establish a bureau and protect the artifact.[15]
Expansion to the Sinai[]
- Bayek: "The Hidden Ones will pass onto Petra and towards Judea. And forever. The Creed must live beyond any one."
- Amunet: "No one shall be bigger than the greater group. When I return to Rome I will not speak of heroes, I will speak of discipline and perseverance."
- Bayek: "Amunet is a Mentor to this brotherhood. Our will never rests..."
- Amunet: "...and our blades shall never tire."
- —Bayek and Amunet addressing their apprentices, 38 BCE.[src]-[m]
Bayek with Tahira and Gamilat
By 38 BCE, the Egyptian Brotherhood had established a bureau in the Sinai and allied with the rebel leader Gamilat to fight the Roman occupation of the peninsula. After two Hidden Ones were killed in a battle with the Romans, the bureau leader Tahira sent a letter to Bayek requesting his aid.[16] Following his arrival in the Sinai, Bayek assassinated the three lieutenants of the Roman general Rufio, all of whom were members of the Order of the Ancients.[17][18][19]
In retaliation, the Romans attacked the Sinai bureau, capturing Bayek, Tahira and another Hidden One, Kashta. Bayek was saved from crucifixion by a recently-arrived Aya, now known as "Amunet", who informed him that the Sinai branch of the Brotherhood had been too "loud", to the point she had heard tales of them in Rome, and that there may be a traitor among them.[20]
Bayek and Amunet preparing to rescue Tahira and Kashta
Working together, Bayek and Amunet saved Tahira and Kashta, though the former succumbed to her injuries shortly after.[20] When Rufio's fleet arrived in the Sinai in response to the Hidden Ones and the rebels' actions, Bayek and Amunet prevented the Romans from burning down a village, before the former boarded Rufio's ship and assassinated him. In his final moments, the general revealed that he too was a member of the Order and claimed that, because of their ideology, the Ancients were eternal.[21]
Later, Amunet informed Bayek of Gamilat's tactic to recruit new members to his rebellion by allowing innocent villagers to die and inspire others to fight against the Romans. When Bayek confronted Gamilat, the latter tried to defend his actions as a necessary evil, forcing the Mentor to slay him. As he lay dying, Gamilat realized the error of his ways and admitted that Bayek had been right to kill him, to which the Mentor swore that from that day on, no one Hidden One would "rise a sword against an innocent".[22]
Bayek and Amunet addressing the Hidden Ones
Gamilat's death and subsequent reverence as a hero caused the Sinai's population to forget about the Hidden Ones, allowing them to operate in the shadows once more. After establishing a new bureau in the mountains of the Arsinoe Nome, Bayek and Amunet addressed their apprentices, declaring that their ideals and, thus, the Brotherhood must outlive any of them. After the two created the first tenet of their new Creed—the prohibition of harming innocent lives—they parted ways, with Amunet returning to Rome while Bayek continued to lead the Brotherhood in Egypt and expanded its influence towards Petra and Judea.[22]
During his time in the Sinai, Bayek recruited two new members to the Brotherhood: Shaqilat, a rebel fighting to liberate slaves captured by the Romans,[23] and Kawab, son of the late Order of the Ancients member Taharqa. Kawab later made plans to travel to Judea and assassinate King Herod I, whom the Hidden Ones regarded as a tyrant.[24]
Assassination of Cleopatra[]
On 12 August 30 BCE, towards the War of Actium's end, Amunet confronted Cleopatra one last time in Alexandria.[25] It had been 13 years since Amunet had spared Cleopatra's life after killing Caesar,[26] but neither woman had forgotten that encounter.[25]
Amunet giving Cleopatra the poison
Amunet implored her former ally to resign to Octavian's imminent victory as his forces marched into the city, which the Pharaoh agreed to on the condition that her son Caesarion be taken in by the Hidden Ones. Amunet then handed her poison by which to commit suicide and left with Cesarion. Once Cleopatra was certain her son was safe, she consumed the poison and died.[25] Later Assassins would eventually romanticize this event with the legend that the queen had been assassinated by Amunet with a venomous asp.[27]
Final Synod[]
- "Work in silence from this day forward. Speak not your name, nor the names of your family and friends. For to do so would be a deadly compromise and a useless gesture. Seek not recognition, nor glory, nor compensation for your duty. Seek only the light, however dimly it may flicker upon the horizon... We are Hidden Ones, all of us, forever together in our solitude. May it ever be so."
- ―Amunet addressing the Hidden Ones at the synod in Alexandria.[src]-[m]
Later that year, the Hidden Ones held their final synod in Alexandria, which was presided over by Amunet. It was attended by the Master Assassin Hakor and several acolytes, including Magas. During the synod, Amunet was asked a number of questions by Magas regarding the Creed and its ironies, prompting an open discussion about it in front of all assembled. After answering his questions, Amunet concluded the final Synod, emphasizing that there would not be another. Amunet then declared that the Hidden Ones were to formally retreat into the shadows to continue their mission.[3]
Later on, Magas approached a fellow acolyte in the gardens outside the tomb of Alexander the Great,[28] and revealed Amunet's identity to them, as she was regarded as a legendary figure by the younger initiates. The acolyte would record both the synod and their subsequent meeting with Magas in a document that would be known as the Magas Codex.[29] Bayek later learned of the Codex's existence and sought to destroy it so that Amunet's identity would remain a secret, but would ultimately not succeed.[30]
Middle Ages[]
Mission on the Silk Road[]
In 870 CE, the Egyptian Brotherhood received a letter from Basim Ibn Ishaq, the leader of the Hidden Ones in Constantinople, asking for support as he had discovered that the Order of the Ancients was active in Antioch. Four Hidden Ones from Alexandria—Jessamyn, Kalim, Rashid and Sihem—went to Antioch and met Basim and his apprentice Hytham in the bureau outside the city. Basim informed them that the Snake-Eaters, a group that protected merchants along the Silk Road, had begun to extort money and attack the civilians who did not pay for their protection. As the group had eliminated the Hidden Ones in the city, Basim suspected a link with the Ancients.[31]
During their investigation in Antioch, the Egyptian Hidden Ones met two of their Frankish brethren from Chinon, Oisel and Matthias, who had also answered Basim's call for help. Together, they met Basim at the bureau who explained the situation to the two Franks. Basim then decided to send the Egyptian and Frankish Hidden Ones on the Silk Road to eliminate the Snake-Eaters while he returned to Constantinople with Hytham.[31]
Leaving Antioch, the Hidden Ones were transported by Kazem, a caravanner's leader. During the journey, the Egyptian Hidden Ones shared their stories and skills with their Frankish brothers. After three months, the group arrived in a small village with a citadel controlled by the Snake-Eaters and their leader Dunya. The group decided to enter the citadel, the Egyptian Hidden Ones covering Oisel and Matthias while they confronted Dunya. Outnumbered, the Egyptian Hidden Ones fled the citadel, believing the two Franks had been killed. Taking documents with them, the Hidden Ones decided to resume their mission by attacking the Snake-Eaters headquarters in Chang'an.[31]
On the road to China, the Hidden Ones were joined by a wounded Oisel who had crossed the desert after his encounter with Dunya. The five Hidden Ones arrived in Chang'an and planned the assassination of Dunya. After the death of their target and the dissolution of the Snake-Eaters, Jessamyn and Oisel founded a bureau in Chang'an, recruiting members from among the local population. After a few months, Jessamyn returned to Alexandria while Oisel went back to Francia.[31]
Aiding the Mamluks[]
The Egyptian Assassin killing a Templar knight
In the early 13th century, the Egyptian Assassins acquired the Scepter of Aset from a merchant, who had purchased it from Italian fishermen that had discovered it after it was lost in a Roman shipwreck during Antiquity. In 1250, after the Mamluks rose up against the reigning Ayyubid dynasty, the Brotherhood, who had formed an alliance with the Mamluks, tasked an unidentified Egyptian Assassin with delivering the Scepter to them. However, while on his way to deliver the artifact in Cairo, the Assassin was attacked by Templar knights.[32]
Despite being injured, the Assassin managed to kill the Templar knights and successfully delivered the Scepter of Aset to the Mamluks, allowing them to succeed in their slave revolt against the rule of their Ayyubid overlords and effectively laying the foundation for the Bahri dynasty.[32]
In 1257, Darim Ibn-La'Ahad, son of the Mentor of the Levantine Brotherhood, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, moved to Alexandria after the Levantine Assassins were disbanded.[33] Darim joined the widow of his deceased brother and her children,[34] which led to their bloodline integrating into the Egyptian Assassins.[35] Darim also notably gave an Apple of Eden to the first Sultan of the Bahri dynasty, further strengthening his power.[32]
Search for the Scepter of Aset[]
Numa fighting Templars in Karnak
In 1340, after the Scepter of Aset had remained in the possession of the Mamluks Sultans for nearly a century, the Egyptian Templars stole it from the Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad and the Assassins entrusted Numa Al'Khamsin, better known as "El Cakr", and his apprentice Ali Al-Ghraib with the task to find the artifact. One year later, Numa and Ali managed to track down the Templars to their hideout in Karnak.[36]
Arriving at night near the Temple of Amun, the two walked across a village, when Ali noticed a man wearing a dagger with the Templar cross on it. After telling this to his master, Ali started a fire as a distraction, so that Numa was able to look for the Scepter of Aset unnoticed.[36]
However, the distraction was not effective and Numa became surrounded by Templars. While the Assassin engaged in battle with his enemies, Ali stole the Scepter from the Templars. Numa and his apprentice then fled from Karnak, taking the artifact with them.[36]
Losing the artifact[]
Two days later, El Cakr arrived at the Sultan’s palace in Cairo. Although the Sultan’s Emirs expected Numa to hand over the artifact, the Assassin did not trust the Emirs and told them the artifact would remain in Assassin hands until a dignified successor to the throne would be presented. Interpreting Numa’s words as an insult, the Emirs locked him up in a prison cell.[36]
Numa being imprisoned
While in the cell, Numa met a woman named Leila, a Templar agent and former servant of Al-Nasir Muhammad, whom she had seduced and killed. After convincing Numa that she was not a true believer of the Templar cause and had merely used them in order to kill the sultan, the two escaped and headed for a safe house that Leila had arranged in the city in order to lay low after the murder of the Sultan. There, she seduced Numa into a sexual encounter.[37]
While Numa was in prison, Ali was captured by the Templars at the Temple of Edfu and was tortured by them, which resulted in them breaking his wrist. Eventually he cracked, agreeing to help them eliminate his master in exchange for his life.[37]
After Numa arrived at Edfu Temple and noticed Ali's bandaged wrist, the Templars surrounded him and Ali. One of them came forward and explained that the Scepter was no longer the only priority of the Order, revealing that Numa was such a nuisance that his death was now a new priority. Lowering her hood, the Templar revealed herself to be Leila and she told El Cakr that she felt no hate towards him but had to follow orders before she began dueling with him.[37]
Ali finding Numa's body
Perfectly trained, Leila revealed that everything she had told Numa about her commitment to the Templars was a lie before putting a dagger into his heart, instantly killing the Assassin before the eyes of his distraught apprentice. Afterwards, she kept her promise to spare Ali and allowed the shaken Assassin apprentice to leave.[37]
However, Ali, even though he had betrayed his master, he was still loyal to the Brotherhood and threw the Scepter into a well near Edfu with the intent to contact the Brotherhood and come back later; unfortunately, he died just a few weeks later of food poisoning. Leila, who had discovered Ali's ruse, managed to briefly find the artifact in the well, only to suffer a head injury while climbing up with it, becoming amnesiac. As a result, the Scepter remained in the well, where it would eventually become lost to time.[37]
Renaissance[]
By 1511, the Egyptian Assassins were under the leadership of their Mentor Iskender, a descendant of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. He was captured to be executed that year, but was saved by Ottoman Assassins sent from Constantinople by the Mentor of the Italian Brotherhood, Ezio Auditore.[35]
That same year, Mamluk soldiers discovered two Memory Seals in a chest dating to 331 BCE during their excavation of the destroyed Library of Alexandria. The Egyptian Assassins retrieved the artifacts with the help of their Ottoman brethren,[38] but lost them during a Templar attack on their headquarters.[39] A search party was subsequently sent out to find the relics and ultimately succeeded in recovering them.[40]
Ottoman Egypt[]
Losing the Apple of Eden[]
Arno placing the Apple in a box to be delivered to Al Mualim
By 1794, the Egyptian Assassins were led by an individual known as Al Mualim, who was based in Cairo. Arno Dorian sent one of his fellow Parisian Assassins to the city with the Apple of Eden he had taken from the Head of Saint Denis to keep it safe.[4]
However, the Brotherhood would ultimately fail to protect the Apple for long, as in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte led a successful military campaign in Egypt and acquired the artifact, which greatly aided him in his rise to power following his return to France.[41]
19th century[]
In 1869, the British Assassin Pierrette Arnaud joined her Egyptian brothers Safiya El-Nadi and Gamal Sabry on a mission to find American Templar Albert Hawkins at the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo,[42] where Khedive Ismail Pasha was hosting an event for his guests, including Empress Eugénie de Montijo. Pierrette herself was invited and goes under the guise as a guest while searching for Hawkins. Spotting her target, she followed him into the auditorium and killed him swiftly. However, she found his cane, which contained an explosive. Temporarily hiding his body, she ran with the cane and disposed of it carefully outside.[43]
With Gamal and Safiya, Pierrette took Hawkins' body from the opera house and informed Egyptian Assassin Council member Amira Benyamina of the mission's success. Amira soon assigned them to investigate Hawkins' railway to its very end.[44] While the three Assassins journeyed to the end, they were surprised to meet Pierrette's old mentor Simeon Price. Conferring with them, Price detailed that a group of Templars led by Armen Kazan were set up at a cave close to the railroad and how they may have the Ankh with them. Finding a secret entrance, they ventured into the cave to find the Templars.[45]
However, they soon became separated after a brief argument, which led Pierrette to leave the other three Assassins behind her.[46] By herself, Pierrette found the Templar excavation crew and Armen placing the Ankh on a slab. Preparing herself, she attacked the Templars, killing Armen and most of the Templars. However, she became injured and later restrained by her former captor Art Hennighan.[47]
There, Pierrette witnessed the Ankh emit a light beam to awaken one of the cave's horse pictures back to life.[47] At the same time, her fellow Assassins came to her rescue while the horse ran past all of them. While Safiya came to Pierrette's aid, Gamal and Simeon chased Hennighan, who took the Ankh and the horse, but failed to catch him.[48]
Afterwards, Egyptian Assassin Council member Mustafa Hussein relieved Gamal and Simeon from their post from the abandoned cave[48] while they regrouped with Safiya, Pierrette, and Amira back at Gamal and Safiya's home. There, Amira congratulated them on Kazan's death but assigned Simeon and Pierrette to stop Hennighan and recover the Ankh. However, before she could join, Pierrette received news about the exhumation of Elizabeth Siddal and thus Ada Lovelace's notes in her casket.[49]
Members[]
- Ptolemaic Egypt
- Tulunid dynasty
- Mamluk Sultanate
- Unidentified Assassin
- Darim Ibn-La'Ahad (Levantine Brotherhood)
- Ali Al-Ghraib
- Numa Al'Khamsin
- Assassin Elder
- Iskender (Mentor; c. 1511)
- Ottoman Empire
- Al Mualim (Mentor; c. 1794)
- Pierrette Arnaud (British Brotherhood)
- Amira Benyamina (French Brotherhood)
- Safiya El-Nadi
- Mustafa Hussein
- Gamal Sabry
Allies and puppets[]
- Ptolemaic Egypt
- Tulunid dynasty
- Basim Ibn Ishaq (Constantinople Hidden Ones)
- Hytham (Constantinople Hidden Ones)
- Matthias (Frankish Hidden Ones)
- Oisel (Frankish Hidden Ones)
- Mamluk Sultanate
- Ottoman Empire
- Arno Dorian (French Brotherhood)
- British Empire
- Simeon Price (British Brotherhood)
Gallery[]
Appearances[]
- Assassin's Creed II (first mentioned)
- Assassin's Creed: Revelations – Mediterranean Defense
- Assassin's Creed – The Hawk Trilogy (first appearance)
- Assassin's Creed: Unity – Dead Kings (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed: Origins
- Assassin's Creed: Origins comic
- Assassin's Creed: Rebellion – The Mask of the Ibis
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed: The Silk Road
- Assassin's Creed: Escape Room Puzzle Book
- Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Resurrection Plot
- Assassin's Creed: Mirage (indirect mention only)
- Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple (cameo)
References[]
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