Book of

the Path

Miguel Lopez * Massif Press * 2019

 The Book of The Path
1.1
At the First End,
in the Garden,
we looked to the stars
and took the first step
on this great journey,
which we all share.
1.2
Now we who tend the great
engines,
we who mind the life-systems,
All who pray at the Door of
the Navigator
share in this task the purpose
ordained and burdened:
The righteousness of the
pilgrim,
and the sadness of the orphan.
1.3
Cast’d from the Garden we
seek a more righteous Path.
We carry with us the seeds of
hope,
to be planted in the New
World.
We carry with us the pain of
loss
to be planted in our hearts.
1.4
To look only back is to lose
the road ahead;
But do not walk without
respect to the way chart’d.
This the eternal question
from the lips of babes and
elders:
How can the Ecumene
continue
when the road behind falls to
memory
and the road ahead is yet to be
plotted?
1
1.5
An answer:
Look to your compatriots,
love them as kin.
Look to your ancestors,
honor their sacrifices
Look to your children!
1.6
In each of us is a piece of the
chart
that will guide us to the
promised land.
In each of us is a memory of
how to find it.
In each of us is the promise of
firm ground,
A New World, a Garden
unspoil’d, and
blue sky, once more.
Testimony 1D2M+1060
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

Home! The end of The Path! By the Navigator’s grace and wisdom, we have arrived — I
have arrived.

I will admit (with some shame yes, but what is a man but a debtor to his shame?) that I
held no great confidence that among the generations of the chosen, it would be my luck
to arrive, healthy and with a sound mind, at the end of our people’s long journey.

I must take a moment to think of the generations that preceded mine. How well they
minded the great machines that give us life, food, and water! How they taught us well the
holy word, the promise of a true journey down The Path! Those brave (some in darker
moments I’m sure would use a less generous term!) few who first left the Garden aboard
this great vessel, knowing that the most uncertain and hostile of journeys waited for
them — ah! I am overcome!

I have wept. I must tell you, posterity, generations-to-come, of our new world, for I have
seen it with my own eyes. From the observation promontory at the very tip of our island-
in-the-dark-sky I watched dawn break over its surface. A great orb, blue and white all
over with deep green bands and spots — “land,” I am told — rising from the shadow of
night. Oh! A beauty so great that it brought the whole of us to our knees.

Song! We sang to set the whole cylinder of the vessel trembling with joy — such was our
chorus that the Isolates in the lost-behind must have heard it, and sang along! Never in
our history have our people truly been one people — been Ecumene — then that day. I
saw Waterlords and Navigator-Ardents arm-in-arm, weeping with joy; Order-Keepers
and Deep-Minders, Engineers and Mothers, Rationlords, Greenlords. All sang together,
all sang the same joyous chorus.

We are have arrived at the New World; home, at last. The call goes up: prepare the
ancient tender-ships and autoshuttles. Break now the seal above the Navigator’s door.
Anoint your crowns, order your domiciles.

We have arrived at the end of one path, and the beginning of another. May it be kind.

2
Testimony 5D4M+1060
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

It has taken me many tries to find the right words. The ones I pen down into my journal
now are certainly not them, but they are true, may I not stray from The Path — even if it
takes me to places that I fear.

Our peace-in-jubilation lasted the spread of a month before the most venal of us decided
to make their plays. Water, Air, Food — the deck-lords set their men to the red. Old
grudges, old claims — their time on this vessel and the power they hold both shrink, and
I fear they would rather destroy than be humbled.

I can feel the clamor of battle shaking the very bones of our ark. This war tears through
our ship like fire through pure oxygen, but it is not the most worrisome event that
prompts my agita.

We needed guidance. The Ardents determined it was time now to break open the seals
above the Navigator’s deck. To gather a party of penitents and priests to enter that never-
walked, airless space, to seek the Navigator and beg Her counsel. I was among those who
volunteered, and much to my dismay, one of the few chosen. Dismay not for the journey
– though that fear I felt most cardinal, to be sure – but for the revelations promised.

The halls were clean and cold and our suits were well made and kept. Unmolested by the
war, we plumbed the black depths of this most forbidden place. Wonders, of course: the
mummified forms of previous generations, stowed in this tomb and wrapped in fine
linens. Riches, piled high as offerings. Shimmering ghosts that peered at us from rooms
they would not allow us to access.

An eerie place. We met the Navigator in Her suite, an amphitheater full of the dessicated
dead, whose uniforms and bodies disintegrated if we touched them.

She spoke to us in a tongue like our own but older, told us that we had arrived to the
New World and that her great mind had already contacted others of her kind.

I’ll never forget her words. “Others of her kind,” she said. “A ship is on its way.”

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Testimony 3D8M+1062
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

I stopped recording in this journal two years ago for despair silenced my hand. Though
my pens were rich in ink, recollection became alchemical transubstantiation. I tore out
those abortive pages, exsanguinating myself and, for a time, halting my desire to make
memory of my life.

Driven by circumstance, I must pick up my old pen once more. I hope to find the ink still
flows, and that its withdrawl is a bloodletting, not a hemorrhage.

It has been two years since we arrived at the New World, and I have not once stepped
upon her holy terra firma. As I write, I sit upon a pew in the center tower, in our most-
grand temple – the Forecylinder. Children laugh and tumble through the air here. A pair
of lovers embrace and watch the worldrise. The Navigator makes herself visible to all, a
being of light. This includes to the Other, who have come to live amongst us in small
numbers. The New World was not a garden as promised. It was a cultivated field, and
these Others, who call themselves “Union,” are its keepers.

It is a pleasant day, and yet I am still morose. Here, at the center of our vessel, there is
little weight. Navigator-Celebrant Goodair once said that we are lightened in this place
because of a lack of a force found abundant on the New World called GRAVITY. A force
is a spirit, and GRAVITY keeps us pressed to ground, safe. This is why the many
chambers inside and outside of the ark turn, I learned when I was in seminary: the
chambers turn and in their slow revolutions they summon GRAVITY to walk with us,
and keep us from drifting into the deep night.

I fear that another year aboard and I will curse GRAVITY for prolonging my limbo. Oh,
let me drift! Let my body crumble for want of the strength to continue! (Though it pains
me to acknowledge this: patience is a practice, not an achievement).

The Others keep us here. Though they come with open arms and wide smiles to offer us
food, water, medicine, there is threat in their words and actions. They promise an end to
our limbo, in time. It is always “in time.”

4
“You will all come in time,” they assure us. “We’re all in this together, we’re all HUMAN.”

And yet they never remove their helms. I have only seen their eyes behind glass.

It is the fault of our proximity to the Navigator, our knowledge of the language of her scripture,
our neutral standing among the Lords, that I along with the rest of the Navigator-Attendants
have been picked by the Other to be their voice among the Ecumene. I do not wish for this task.
I must translate their pronouncements to our words, even as they tell me in confidence that we
must learn theirs in order to be chosen. I wonder if I will ever be chosen. I am useful to them
here, so I fear not.

One of the Others, a doctor whose name is long and complex, works close with me: “Z.” The
next time Z is here I mean to inquire to the truth of the matter of our detainment. She seems to
be afflicted with terrible CURIOSITY, and I feel that she will require more of me than I am
willing or able to give.

This is reason one why I returned to the transsubstantive practice: to record our interactions, to
provide as record for posterity. I must show that I remained true to the Path, even if my actions
seem contradictory.

In happier news: son, if you should ever read this record of my life, know that today marks the
day you were born. The Navigator herself smiled upon your birth and said to me: this one shall
drink fresh water all his life.

Ah, a dream. As all things at the end of this Path once were.

I tell you this now so that you may measure me honestly as a man and not your father, and see
that the two ideas can be held in concert and conversation: I worry that we might not be at the
end, and though many have toiled for this moment of arrival, we have not yet come home. I am
afraid, and yet I must persist.

My son: you and your father are my GRAVITY. I will end this entry overwhelmed by love.

(And I have found it does not hurt to write! A kindness).

5
Testimony 5D10M+1062
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

The crises never abate.

More than just the great engines rumble in the deep. The belly of our ark has soured to
abcess; this I tried to tell Z but she did not listen. I think kindly of her, but she is infected
by that demon, whose name is CURIOSITY, who makes one CURIOUS and to be
CURIOUS is to be a step closer towards death. Yes, a necessary thing some times, but not
now, when we know and they don’t listen.

A reminder: because we were CURIOUS, we spoil’d the Garden. Because we were

CURIOUS we turned our great and terrible minds to the endless distance above. Because
we were CURIOUS we flung our feeble bodies across it. Because we were CURIOUS, we
forgot that all ships breed rats. Because we were CURIOUS, we learned, and because we
were CURIOUS we didn’t listen.

Z does not take our counsel to heart. Her eyes light from within when I tell her “No, do
not go beyond the sealed doors.” There are reasons we have built the safeguard, there are
reasons for the Spinal Guard. Forget the sealed doors, I tell her. They keep the Isolates,
those who have forsaken the Navigator’s wisdom and embrace darkness; save us, those
who She has chosen to follow her Path in light.

I am afraid. Z wishes for me to take her and her retinue to crack the seals and allow them
to descend into the darkened chambers. I, afraid, desperate, agreed to lead them. Two
years now trapped above our rightful Home and I so desperately want to complete my
journey. My child, should you ever read this, know that I did this so that you may grow
tall and strong with true ground under your feet and no roof but endless blue sky. I did
not want you to live a life in the prison of your birth.

I plan to consult with the Navigator and use what sway I have with the Spinal Guard to
open the safeguard doors. Z assures me that our myths have poisoned our hearts to the
nature of those who were sealed behind. I ask her — is not this ark proof that some are
chosen to be left behind, and some are not?

6
Testimony 7D10M+1062
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

Z and many of the others are dead. I was right. The Isolates, the left-behind, burst from
their deep place and spread sickness out among the Ecumene. Is this a gift we carried for
to New World for all these centuries? A plague? Or a curse created by the Other who
detained us here, aboard a dying vessel well after its journey was complete?

I do not speak of the damned Isolates sealed below the great spinal doors. The living were
poor creatures who attacked us for only as long as they thought we brought water, food,
or medicine. Our guards, though they had guns, did not fire a shot: our flashlights could
scare the Isolates away, such was their sensitivity and frailty. The plague they carried
stuck to us; they did not need to attack us with fists or weapons to kill us.

What has our Path led us from? What has it led us to? Could the Garden have been so
spoiled that this was a preferable alternative?

The Others, they of Union, mean to restrict the whole of us still aboard our ark until
they can devise a cure for this plague. They have not told us how long this will take; when
a group of pilgrim youths attempted to take an autoboat to the New World, the
Unionites shot it from the sky with missiles — I can only assume this means they have no
way of stopping the plague in the immediate future.

Your father told me once that the Path is not a linear journey. It is not always clear. My
faith tells me this as well. What capricious surveyor laid our path. What cruel scout
charted mine.

I am to tend to the dead. I appear to be resistant to the illness, or lucky. One cannot say.

7
 1D1M+1063

Liturgies 1 – Denial of Fear

In dark times repeat this twice:

I am not my body,
I am not bound to a corpse.
I travel along The Path and,
I am not alone.
I will not be forgotten from the mind of my people,
Who carry in their left hand memory,
And destiny in their right.
I am born of the stars
and the firmament.
I am Ecumene
And I will feel soft ground beneath my feet.

Entered here were the words of NA Loyal, your father: I have given you to the care of the
Other, that they may see you off this place. Forgive me and your father, who has passed
just days prior. I will not commit his name to this morose text.

The liturg written above is dear to our people. Remember it, no matter what.

I will see you at the end,

N.A. Loyal On-The-Path

8
Testimony 3D7M+1063
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

In the darkness aboard this heavenly vessel, I am reminded of a passage from Charts and
Navigations in the Book of the Path, that of the lamentations of the second generation
from the Garden:

“O!” They cry, “who were you to cast doom upon us? We children born at the speed of
light, with no land to claim and none before, and no time to name our own.”

And the first generation, who replies: “What you call doom, we call salvation; yours is the
lament of the babe born on the lifeboat, who wails for want of a ship, when neither the
ship nor the land it departed from was gentle as the babe thinks it to have been.”

But the second generation is not satisfied with this answer, and they retort: “Who are you
to make this determination for us, we who are the chosen people?”

And the first breaks down to tears, and replies, “Truly, you do not know the choice that
we were forced to make — the land we left is a land of devils and plagues, with salt water
and poisoned air.” They say this three times from behind the Doors, their voices small
and smaller.

And the second rages and wails, and casts the First into dark depths of the heavenly
vessel. Alone, the second decides to turn back, to paddle, as it were, their lifeboat back to
the ruined ship, and then follow the oil-slick back to shore. First, though, they attempt to
contact the ship — this is the Garden, you see — and when they do they are sobered by
what they see: Ruin. Devils of fire that consume continents. Hungry oceans that swallow
up those continents. Ancient titans of ice that pound the seas away. Finally, they see the
bomb-suns flashing and void pits’ mouths gasping like an Ecumene who has been spaced.

The second generation decides not to turn back. The second generation decides to create
a third. In time, the third generation comes to the second, and asks them: “Who are you
to make this determination for us, we who are the chosen people?”

And so it continues.

9
I mean to journey to the depths of this ship, to see what secrets I can learn of the first
generations. The Isolates, should any remain, have lived parallel lives to us. They may have some
wisdom, and patience to share with us the secrets of living a life in darkness.

If I am doomed to wander this cylinder of hell, then I should make an attempt to learn from the
imps and devils who have lived in hell for centuries.

I will gather a party of like-minded Ecumene and depart tomorrow morning. Should we die in
those stygian chambers, then at least our torpor be done.

10
Testimony 7D12M+1063
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

I return for a brief entry. The journey was perilous. What remained of the Spinal Guard
attacked us and dispatched many of my comrades, but our numbers gave us the day.

From that ragged final post, armored in faith and purpose we entered the isolation zone.
With blessing from the Navigator, we had retrieved ancient maps and schematics of the
zone, and we knew it to be a segmented habitation cylinder not unlike the many that
composed our world. Lone though it may be, even a single cylinder was vast, large
enough to make a home for tens of thousands to live comfortably. Plumbing its depths
would be the work of months.

Within the first three days, a party of the Isolates met us. By our circadian clocks, it was
early morning — there is no sun in that chamber, the great central lamp having been
shuttered by damage or want of power many generations prior — and our party was
making ready for the day. The Isolates met us with caution: we may have been the enemy,
but the previous expedition had killed many of them. This time, however, we came with
many supplies, arranged in offering in our camp. With some difficulty, we found we
could speak with them. We have shared much in the time since.

My son, know this: they do not follow the Path as we know it, but they are not the
savages I had thought. These children of the first generation, as we, the children of the
many generations, simply want one thing: deliverance. What they have is what we lack: a
means to attain that deliverance. By the same token, we have what they lack: the
knowledge for how to breathe life into their means. This curious pairing is what the
Isolates call “Aun,” what I understand now to mean a kind of axiomatic “complete”
being, phenomenon, or idea. Not a moderation of poles, but a deft navigation between
equally held aspects; a perfect construction of fate, luck, and purpose.

I find renewed purpose among these Isolates. A broadening of my mission. What began
as a sepulchral delve became something aware of the land beyond. In the months that I
have lived with my cast-aside brothers and sisters, I have rediscovered what our people
have always known to be true: the only way out is through.

Our path leads us to stand somewhere between Devil and Chosen — may deliverance
afford our people the best of both; may we become Aun.

11
Testimony 2D3M+1067
Begin here the testimony of Navigator-Attendant Loyal On-The-
Path of the Tenth Generation, of Deck 3. My words so written
are true, that my feet may forever walk The Path.

Once more I put pen to page. Likely for the last time. My son, should you at some future
date find this text and all others I have written, I do imagine that should be ahappy
future, because you are in it. I write the balance with love.

My name is Loyal. I write to memorialize the peoples of this vessel, whose name is
Armstrong, middle sister of the Ten who fled the Garden as the first roots fell ill. You
below likely know of the Rihla, no doubt you have made monument of its corpse and
laid its lost souls to rest — if you are a good people, you will have done this.

It has been years of long work. What Z and her fellows did not know was that the
Navigator hid secrets from her; She did not trust the doctor, and was right to not trust
the doctor. The Navigator has told her Aun, though, of many wonders hidden in her
belly, in the seams of her bulkheads, and the words and actions one must complete in
order to summon them forth. We have reawoken Her wonders and put them to use.

We board a flight of tender ships and lifeboats, all of us this time. Many will find an end
to their Path after meeting your missiles, no doubt, but there are tens of thousands of us.
The plague you fear is no longer here, but our calls to be reunited go unanswered. We too
deserve to walk in the light of a kind sun, under a blue sky, in the Garden that was
promised.

The Garden you keep was not meant to fatten the bellies of a few; it was meant for all
people.

It was meant for the Aun.

12