Caino's Alphabet, I

In his joy at being reunited with Caino, 
Darius forgot for a moment the trials of his journey.  Then, in a language all their own, 
Caino asked if he had found the church 
across the river; if he had seen 
what was painted above its altar.
    Darius looked away and the joy drained 
from his face, “I couldn’t even get across the river.  Everything got weirder the further on I went.  
The trees couldn’t decide which way 
the wind was blowing; 
the animals all became ghosts.    
    “I saw a fox kill a rabbit again and again, 
while the rabbit escaped in eight directions at once.  They split and they merged until I just turned 
and ran.  One rabbit even killed a fox.  
    “It got even worse at the ferry.  
Everything was everywhere and nowhere all at once.  Horses with carts became boxy, 
wheeled things—splitting, merging, 
or just bursting into flames.  
The people split and joined like the animals, 
and the ferry kept shifting as well, 
some-times it was a bridge and at others a ferry 
and once there was nothing at all.  
    “The far bank was constantly shifting, 
at once a village, a forest and a huge lake of sand.  
It was terrible and there was no way to cross.  
I watched as long as I could but it was too much 
to take, so I panicked and ran straight back to you.”
    Darius, a child again, curled himself up next 
to Caino, and for a long time, the two old friends 
sat together quietly listening 
to the sounds of the forest.
—
    “I think I know how we came to be friends,” 
said Caino at last, “long ago you knew me in 
your waking world but then I died, yes?”
    “You died,” Darius replied, 
hugging his knees, his eyes fixed on the ground. 
    “How many were we?” asked Caino, 
“Were we six? three boys two girls, 
and our mother?”
    “Those, yes, and a father as well,” Darius replied.
    “I’ve had dreams like that,” said Caino, 
“and though I try to forget it, a memory too.  
It’s about wolves, they get inside and… 
I would have been killed, but our dog 
took me by my collar and jumped out of the window.  He hid me in a cave by a creek and then 
he went back to the house.  When I finally got home, he was dead along with everyone else.”
    “I have that memory too, but it was 
different for me,” said the child, looking up at Caino, “I tried to snatch you up, but they 
ripped you away from me.  
I tried fighting them off, but while 
I was busy with one, the others had time to kill. 
So they took their turns with the fighting and killing until I was the only one left.” 
    Darius fell silent, his eyes lost and unfocused 
on the ground, but Caino’s brow furrowed, 
and with chin resting on hand, he became 
a caricature of concentration as his mind 
struggled to reconcile his present with 
these memories of the past. 
—
    The reason Aaron had for remaining 
at camp was not only to await Darius’s return.  
More important to him was the time that it 
gave him with Gail.  The Abbot would take her 
under his charge as soon as they arrived at the Abbey, but while he had her all to himself, 
Aaron could guide Gail’s interrogation as he felt fit.  She was the first of the dreaded Second Science 
he had encountered, and many of the questions 
he wanted to ask her would be 
looked at askance at the Abbey.  
    Where he was honest with himself, 
Aaron also felt a thrill at being able to 
debate a representative of his sect’s 
deadly rival cult.  Where he was not 
honest with himself was in that he was falling 
for Gail, and he feared that their arrival 
at the Abbey would take her from him forever.    
    Yet another reason Aaron delayed was that 
he was not at all sure of what to do with the Point 
he had acquired from his kidnappers.  
The Abbot would surely commandeer it along 
with Gail, and although Aaron was committed to 
his sect and its ultimate goal, 
he was less convinced by the current bureaucracy and wary of some of the Abbot’s more regressive tendencies.  Aaron was not eager 
to add to his power.
    So when Caino told Aaron of Darius’s return, 
it was not his failure to cross the river 
that irked him, it was instead the fact that now 
their journey to the Abbey could no longer 
be legitimately postponed. 
    “What do you mean he couldn’t cross the river?  Said Aaron upon their return, “your friend, 
if he does exist, was clearly afraid.  
In fact, perhaps he doesn’t exist at all. 
 It would be entirely more likely that you have
some mad clairvoyance of your own.  
That would leave me with just one 
unnatural freak to explain in place of two—
cutting my worries by half.” 
    Aarons's application of Occam's razor 
was appropriate, but in this case inaccurate.  Furthermore, his manner was unusually harsh, 
and he regretted his tone 
as soon as the words left his mouth.
    “He finds the rabbits you eat every morning, and he helped save you from your new friend 
the kidnapper.  I didn’t make that up, 
and Darius isn't afraid of anything!”
    “All right, all right.  I take back what 
I said about him being afraid,” said Aaron, 
clasping his face with both hands in 
a gesture of futility, “let's find Gail and see 
if anything your friend said about the ferry 
matches up.  Have you ever been to that crossing?”
    “No,” replied Caino sullenly, they had 
long since travelled beyond his usual haunts 
and he was indeed in unfamiliar territory. 
    “Well, I’ll take your word on that, 
but I doubt Gail will,” grumbled Aaron, 
and Caino wondered at this new-found deference
to their kidnapper-turned-captive.  
The pair rose and, leaving the ruin 
where they had been talking, 
they made their way back to the campsite.
    Returning to their camp, Caino was surprised 
to see Gail’s feet only loosely tied beneath her 
and her hands now entirely unbound. 
What was more, she was seated in front of the fire using Aaron’s long knife to clean mushrooms 
and forest roots for their supper.  
It was clear now to Caino that Aaron 
was on the verge of disregarding all 
pretense of her captivity and simply 
setting her free.  It was equally clear to him 
that she had no desire to leave.  
    Not for the last time, Caino felt grateful 
for the simple predictability 
of his own uncomplicated friendship with Darius.