Caino's Alphabet, Q

Quietly padding up beside Caino 
as he ran behind the Abbey’s caves, 
Darius told him in a language all their own, 
“our friends have returned, 
have you seen them yet?”
    “I did, yesterday after-noon,” replied Caino, 
still groggy from his late night with Xalwo.
     “They’re in the same cave 
as you were last night, the seventh cell to the left,” advised the wolf. 
    “I’ll go to them now,” said Caino.
    When he reached the cell in question, 
Caino found the door locked.  
He put his ear to the keyhole and, 
listening for a moment,
 heard the sound of hushed voices inside.  
He knocked gently and whispered, 
“open up, it's me!”
    There was a hasty shuffle and, after a pause, 
the sound of a bolt sliding back.  
Then, the door opened a crack to 
reveal a thin sliver of Gail’s somewhat flushed face.
    “It’s me, Caino.  Where’s Aaron?”
    Gail poked her head out of the doorway 
and glanced up and down the passage.  
When she was satisfied that Caino was alone, 
she pulled him into the room.
    “Come out Aaron, it’s only Caino,” 
Gail whispered, and Aaron’s naked form 
emerged sheepishly from beneath the bed.      
    While celibacy was not enforced in the Abbey, 
it was strongly encouraged;  Caino 
(who appreciated a broken taboo 
as only a young boy could) 
buried boyish giggles in his monkish sleeve 
until Aaron was fully dressed.  
    When he had recovered from 
his spasmodic mirth, 
Caino demanded an explanation 
for Gail and Aaron’s unannounced departure.  Already taken off guard, Aaron had no answer
for this but, recalling the final days of their journey, Caino realised he already knew the reason 
for their departure.  They had fallen in love.  
So rather than pressing them 
about their motivation for leaving, 
he instead asked them where they had been.  
—
    Aaron had taken Gail 
on a grand tour of what
settlements remained in the area.  
During their travels, he was at pains 
to point out that almost 
all of the people they met on the road 
were doubtless living out vestigial Paths 
which would be discarded 
were the Machine to be run by her Second Science.  
    Meanwhile, Gail had explained 
to Aaron the workings of the finished Machine.  
She would be among those 
who would complete its final function 
and knew its architecture well.  
She took him through estimates of its capacity 
in comparison with predicted workloads 
and other limiting factors ignored by zealots 
of the First Science.  She made every attempt 
to convince him 
of the Second Science’s central tenant: 
that a limited afterlife was better than none at all.
    During this time, Aaron was able 
to learn more about the workings 
of the completed Machine and the motivations 
of the Second Science than Vincent and Wayne 
had in almost forty years 
of peering through the Abbot’s Point.
    Gail, on the other hand, had nothing concrete 
to learn from Aaron (to her, a primitive monk 
from the distant past), yet he had rekindled
 in her the principles and aspirations 
that had been eroded and almost forgotten 
in the rational and technocratic future 
from which she had come.
    As they journeyed from village 
to village trying to reconcile the Idealism 
of the First Science with the realism 
of the Second, they found themselves travelling 
in circles—both literally as well as figuratively, 
so they decided to return to the Abbey, 
where they could refer to its substantial library 
as they continued their debates in secret.
—    
    After hearing of Gail 
and Aaron's roving reconciliation, 
Caino told them about his studies, 
bewailing their monotony 
and lack of practicality 
(evoking a nostalgic chuckle from Aaron).  
Then he described the absence of divergent Paths 
at the conclusion of the Abbot's council, 
citing this anomaly as evidence 
of the insidious stagnation 
that now presided over the Abbey.
    “The work has become ritual,” 
said Caino, animated by this opportunity 
to express his long unspoken thoughts, 
“having witnessed the Machine’s activation, 
the Abbot and his council have come 
to think of it as an accomplished feat.  
Rather than working toward its completion, 
their time is spent enforcing morality 
and weeding out imagined heretics. 
    “I’m just a novice here,” continued Caino, 
“and It's not for me to plot our course, 
but I’m telling you—
the one we’re on is leading us nowhere, 
and fast.  We need to hold our own council.  
One with more than one possible outcome.  
One that guides us towards a completed Machine and not an obedient Abbey.”
    At this point, Aaron and Gail shared a look 
like that of two parents preparing 
to explain a difficult adult truth to a child, 
and Caino paused, sensing he had touched on something of more substance than his dislike 
of the Abbey’s petty bureaucracy. 
    "I would agree with you on the need 
for reform in our order," began Aaron, 
"but as to your thoughts on the behaviour 
of the Abbot’s Path, well… 
you might judge him less harshly 
when you hear what I have to say.  
    “During our travels, 
Gail and I discussed your bond with Darius
 at length, and we concluded that, 
for your Path to host his as it does, 
it would have to be entirely un-branching 
and certain, otherwise Darius would 
find a different you every time he slept.  
There is no doubt of this.  
Is he a symptom or the cause?  
I don’t know, but the only other instance 
of un-branching Paths I know 
of is the phenomenon of the Day, 
and now you are telling us the Abbot shares 
this condition as well.”
    "It could be that he plays an essential role 
on your Path," mused Gail, 
forming her thoughts as she spoke, 
“or you on his.  Preordained events—fate if you like… 
it’s all very unfashionable amongst those of us 
who study Places and Paths.”
    “But if I have only the one Path, 
my choices are all just illusions frozen in time!”  cried Caino in dismay.
    “And perhaps for others about you as well,” added Gail, “It’s as if your lives were anchored 
to some event in the future…  
When we project ourselves back, 
my own people are always funnelled 
onto this specific local cluster of Paths 
we are now upon—in a manner not dissimilar 
to the way your observations are confined 
to the Day…”
    “If that’s the case,” said Aaron, frowning, 
“there may be something specific 
to our locality affecting the Day.  
I think you’re right, Caino, 
We should hold our own council—
we’ll need all the help we can get 
if we’re to untangle this mess.”
—
    Early that morning, while the Abbey still slept, Xalwo had taken the manuscripts she had borrowed for Caino back to the Abbot’s chamber. 
They had been kept in a locked drawer 
in the Abbots desk, but she knew 
where he hid the key.  As she opened the drawer 
to replace them, Xalwo spied a small metal box 
that looked very much like Caino’s.  
She knew what it contained; 
she had even been allowed 
to use it for her own research on one occasion.  
    The Abbot rarely let the little box 
out of his sight, but here it was, 
and Xalwo felt compelled to open it.  
She would have a little look.  Just a peek.  
Xalwo listened for a moment, 
and hearing only silence, she gently shut the door.  Having convinced herself 
that she was all alone, 
she took the box from the drawer 
and opened it just a crack.  
Darkness filled the room and her eyes teared 
from the intensity of the purple-tinged blackness.  Then the box closed.  She replaced the documents, 
she locked the drawer and she exited the cave. 
—    
    Back at her cell, Xalwo was just settling 
into her day’s task 
of converting two into three-dimensional 
circuitry diagrams, when she heard a knock 
at her door.  She opened it 
to find the young apprentice 
for whom she had borrowed the manuscripts, 
along with a monk she recognised as Aaron 
and an unfamiliar young woman dressed 
in the robes of a novice.
    “Xalwo,” said Aaron, 
a bit too warmly for Gail’s liking, 
“it has been too long.  May we visit you in your cell?  
We would like to discuss your… dark-child values.”