In the course of his travels across Egypt, trying to find the men that murdered his son, Bayek finds his way into all kinds of unexpected situations. He is a desperate man willing to do anything for closure on Khemu's killers, and desperation takes him across Egypt and back, through sandstorms so dense Senu can't even fly, to cities, to burned out villages, to open fields, to the depths of the Nile.

And to the tombs.

He really shouldn't keep finding reasons to break into those, but he does. And the more tombs he sees, the more he realizes that they fall into two categories. The ones that are more or less as he expects them to be—burial sites for ancient pharaohs, sacred places where they were laid to rest in preparation for the journey to the field of reeds. Bayek knows how to react to those—reverently, and with as much respect as he can, given that he is an intruder.

And then there are the other tombs. The ones made of strange, smooth black stone, the ones where unknown voices speak to him in an indecipherable language. It doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out that these tombs—or at least these innermost chambers—are not Egyptian. But it's only after Bayek has seen several of them that he starts to get a… a feeling for them. These tombs are also part of something ancient. They're just not Egyptian.

They're fascinating, but to be perfectly honest Bayek has a lot on his mind these days, and no energy to devote to another mystery. When he happens to stumble on one of these tombs, Bayek will listen to the nonsense words, and marvel at the sheer scale, but then he'll move on. He doesn't expect this time to be any different, except that this time as soon as the monologue starts, Bayek hears a second voice, and he can understand this one.

"None of this is for you, you know," it says. "It's all for her."

Bayek turns, hand going instinctively to his sword, eyes scanning his surroundings. There's a man standing maybe twenty feet away, older than Bayek by maybe twenty years. His hair is an unruly mane of dark curls, and when Bayek steps carefully toward him he's surprised at his eyes—two distinctly different colors. "Who is this for, then?" he asks. "Who is she?"

"She—that doesn't matter right now. The animus will prioritize the message over your memories, so this is the safest time for us to talk."

Bayek hesitates. "None of that makes any sense," he says. "Who are you?"

"I am a Sage."

"I meant your name—"

"That doesn't matter," the man—the Sage—says. "Listen, Bayek."

"So your name doesn't matter, but you just happen to know mine?"

The Sage seems genuinely amused by that. "If a man will travel the length and breadth of Egypt, saving every lost child and hurting innocent that crosses your path, that man's name will spread."

Bayek hesitates, dropping his blade just a fraction. He has a point.

"Bayek," the Sage says. "I know you're hurting. I heard what happened to your son, and I'm sorry. But you will have another chance."

Khemu. As always, even the briefest reminder of his lost son is enough to send a throb of pain all the way through to Bayek's core, and he tightens his hold on his blade, but this time there's a halting excitement that follows the words. In this time and this place, the promise almost sounds like a prophecy—and there is nothing Bayek wants as badly as he wants to be a father again. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks. "Another chance? How…?"

"Someday," the Sage says. "When your work in this time is done, come find me. I'll explain everything."

"In this time—"

"When your work is done," the Sage says. "Come find me. Your eagle will find the way."

The voice behind him, speaking in that unknown language, suddenly falls into silence. Bayek glances back instinctively, but of course there's no physical person speaking there, and nothing to look at. When he remembers himself, and looks back for the Sage, the man is already walking away. He seems to know the place better than Bayek does, because even though Bayek runs after him immediately, the Sage turns a corner that he just doesn't see, and he doesn't manage to spot him again.

-/-

Years go by before Bayek gives any serious thought to tracking down the Sage again. But when he finally has his revenge—for what that's worth—and Aya is gone, replaced by an Amunet that Bayek doesn't recognize, and there is nothing else in the whole of Egypt that seems… worth doing, then Bayek's mind turns back to that promise of another chance. By now he knows there will be no more children. His life as it used to be is dust, and he will never be a father. So he sets out again, Senu flying above him, searching for the Sage. And after a week or so of searching, she seems to spot something, and leads Bayek off at a new angle. They keep travelling for a while after that, and then they get to the tiny village where the Sage is waiting for them.

Bayek recognizes the face, the hair, the mismatched eyes—but this man is at least five years younger than him. The first Sage he met had been older.

"Bayek," the Sage says, with a loose grin. Despite sharing a face, the voice is different—his accent is unmistakably Greek, not Egyptian, and there's a cheerful cast to his features that had been missing in the first man. Still, he says, "I've been waiting for you."

"I was actually…" It's hard not to look at his eyes. "I was actually looking for somebody else. I think."

"No," he says. "You were looking for me. The Sage you met originally died a few months ago, but that's why I'm here. He taught me everything he knew about Sages before he died, and he told me what you need to do."

"Which is what, exactly?"

The Sage shakes his head and gestures for Bayek to make himself comfortable. "We have some background to get through first," he says. "It might take a while. See—there was another race of people on earth. Thousands of years ago."

"The gods," Bayek says.

"The isu," the Sage corrects. "They were… well, complicated, and I'm sure we'll get back to them later. But what you need to know right now is that they were very smart. They had technologies that we can't even imagine now, and before they were wiped out they left… artifacts behind to try and guide humanity into an eventual outcome that they wanted."

Bayek frowns—skeptical, but a little curious, despite himself. "Tell me more."

So the Sage does. Over the course of the next several weeks, he tells Bayek a lot of things about the isu, about the pieces of eden they left behind, the apples and shrouds and staffs and keys. He tells him about the solar flare that's eventually going to come close to wiping humanity out. Bayek starts out skeptical, but the more he hears, the more it makes sense. These pieces of eden are exactly what the Order of the Ancients has been looking for, all this time. He's actually seen the effects of the so called apple for himself, and it's exactly as strange as what the Sage is telling him.

"So this is what the Sages do?" he asks, when all the explanations are finally over, and he and the Sage are sitting together over a low fire in the near darkness of a cloudy, starless night. "You… track people down and tell them about all this isu history?"

"No," the Sage says. "Not usually. I mean, we're sort of a mistake. One of the isu was trying to bring her dead husband back to life, and just… messed up a whole bunch of us. She couldn't bring him back, but we have his face and some of his… understanding. And as long as each Sage keeps reaching out to the next one, and teaching them what they know… we'll sort of have a purpose." He shrugs. "I mean, I just don't know how long that's going to last. I worry that someday we're going to lose it, and then what are we going to be? Just a group of odd looking men that know a little too much, and understand nothing." He's staring into the fire. It only takes one lost Sage, and that unbroken chain of Sages going all the way back to the isu is broken, and then there's going to be no one left that knows how any of this works."

"I'm sure that won't happen," Bayek says, although he feels completely out of his depth making that claim.

"Someday," the Sage says. "But anyway, no. This isn't usually what we do. We need you for something, Bayek. And you're going to get your second chance."

Bayek hasn't forgotten that. "For Khemu," he says. "But that's… it's too late for me. There are no more children coming for me, Sage."

"No." The Sage grins. "But there is the Brotherhood."

It takes Bayek a second to figure out what he means. "The Hidden Ones?"

The Sage leans down to the dirt, and draws their symbol there in stark, clean lines. "Bayek," he says quietly. "Your Brotherhood that's going to last forever." A little chill goes through Bayek at those words. In almost the exact same way as he had looked at that first Sage in that isu temple, and known that he was telling the truth, Bayek believes this Sage now. And to tell the honest truth, that scares him a little bit. He wants his Brotherhood to last, but forever is a long time. "Hundreds—thousands—of brothers and sisters."

Bayek lets out a shaky little breath, letting that sink in.

"Remember that solar flare I told you about?"

Bayek nods, a little confused. "The one you said was going to happen in more than two thousand years?"

"That's the one," the Sage says. He's grinning and clearly enjoying this too much. "And Bayek, if they're going to stop it—stop it the right way—they're going to need your help."

A moment of silence, then Bayek repeats, quietly, "Two thousand years."

-/-

I kind of like the idea of Sages as this like big group of people that are trying to preserve knowledge of the First Civilization, passing it down one Sage to the next, until at some point someone dropped the ball, and we got the useless and semi-malevolent Sages we've had ever since AC4. *Shrug* That, and Bayek needed someone to explain things to him.

Anyway, I have a very, very vague idea of where this is going. I know it's going to involve Desmond and Layla eventually, because modern storyline for the win. But please have patience with me as I kind of careen forward with this story without any idea where it's going! Hopefully it'll be a fun ride.