Caino's Alphabet, U
Unseen now in his copse of small trees,
Caino watched as Darius trotted up
from the direction of the Abbey,
wearing the form of a wolf.
“What of the game then?” Caino asked
in a language all their own.
“Leo won most of the games,
Monty was cheating in almost all of them,
and on some Paths, he is caught and beaten
by Paulo and Orion,” replied Darius.
“Cheating, how?”
“He pulled cards from his robe
and put others in his boots.”
Caino let out a laugh, then his smile faded
as he looked at his friend.
“Darius. I need you to help me again.”
“I will help you,” smiled the wolf.
“This time will be harder.
I’ll be travelling back through somebody’s life,
and you will follow me because you’re bound
to my Path. You should see the world
join rather than split and it will all be in reverse. You’ll have to remember what you see
and tell me about it when
we meet again. It’ll all be over in a moment
for me, but for you it will seem a lifetime.”
“You’ll be there?” asked Darius,
his head cocked to one side.
“I’ll be inside the body you follow,
held suspended in a Point that’s pulling us back
to the start of his life.”
Darius gave Caino his toothiest grin
and said, “I’ll go, why not?
In the end, it’s all just a dream .”
—
When Caino returned he felt as if
he had already travelled back in time.
He found Gail engaged in the very same debates that she had shared with Aaron during their time
in the wild, as she attempted simultaneously
to defend her cult’s theology
and put her new comrades at ease.
Caino knew the First Scientists would
find dealing with this ‘heretic’ difficult at first,
but he imagined the tonic of free debate
which had softened Aaron might very well
pacify these new comrades as well.
So, he sat and waited patiently
as the First and Second Sciences once again regurgitated their respective manifestos.
It was not long before the protagonists began
to repeat themselves, and Caino, judging tempers
to have sufficiently cooled,
cleared his throat and addressed the Novices.
“Leo—you know, Darius warned me not
to play cards with you,” said Caino,
“he told me you win every game,”
Leo grinned proudly and Caino turned to Monty, “but you should be ashamed of yourself Monty—gimme those boots of yours.”
Monty complied sheepishly,
and when Caino turned his boots upside down
and shook them,
they produced a rain of playing cards.
“You son of a-” began Paulo,
who grew red in the face and, clearly struggling
to restrain himself, glared ominously at Monty.
“Thank you for your game,” broke in Aaron,
“but we have moved on to more interesting matters. Caino, explain again your theory and its test.”
Caino summarised his ideas to the four novices. Then, addressing the entire group he asked,
“if I obtain evidence supporting these ideas,
will you help me to prove them?
I have only the skeleton of a theory,
and it will take wiser heads than mine
to give it flesh.”
There was a discussion followed
by an agreement, but this was no surprise—
Caino had vetted the group thoroughly.
Like the Abbot, he preferred not
to leave consensus to chance.
“I have everything I need but a subject,”
said Caino morosely, “for that, I must be patient
and keep company with the elderly.
As I said before, to prove my ideas,
I’ll have to catch someone’s final End,
and that could take years.”
“If you ever catch one at all,”
grumbled Wayne unhelpfully.
“There’s a lot of grumpy old men at the Abbey, you can start with the Abbot!” put in Orion
to guffaws from the other novices.
Aaron seemed about to venture an idea,
but Gail raised a hand to stop him.
“But you’ve already found your subject,”
she said, “there’s no need for delay.
You can have your evidence tonight.”
“How could he?” asked Wayne,
“It’s hard enough to find someone who’s
about to die, let alone to predict their final End. Even if we were to kill someone our-selves,
they will doubtless escape us on other Paths.”
“No need for that,” Gail smiled,
“that old hunter you saw, Caino—
you could possess his quarry from this future. Assuming you keep your head,
that pig should suit your purpose just fine.”