Book 1: Masks of God
Book 2: Soul Engineer
Book 3: Brotherhood of Shadows
Book 4: Palace of Regret
OC Series Synopsis: Exploratores
Series Synopsis: Exploratores
There are two worlds: The First and the Second. Both worlds are inhabited by intelligences called Selves who are counterparts of each other—though only the residents of the First World know this truth. Those in the alternate realm have no clue how they got there, or why. Convinced they are the natural offshoots of the Second World, they even consider it their home. The idea that they were sent to colonize the place never occurs to them. Much less can they think of themselves as the “alter egos” of beings so vastly advanced, they defy naming or categorization. This is by design.
Yet the Firsts are not gods. They are explorers of impossible realms, and their influence upon the Seconds is no stronger than the whispers of a muse. They cannot interfere directly in the affairs of the Second World. The Firsts watch over their counterparts to gauge how far they are from becoming a star-faring civilization. Their main concerns are global disasters that would hinder the Second’s rise. The Firsts cannot prevent natural tragedies, only man-made ones. Sometimes a nudge of conscience can alter the course of worldwide developments. The approach is not foolproof, as the setbacks in human history show. Yet the Seconds are much farther in their development than they were 13,000 years ago, when they abandoned their foraging ways and settled down to plant food and build lasting structures. To this day they cannot explain this sudden change, much less remember it. This is also by design.
There is one exception: a Second who knows how it all began. His current name is Kayin, but his memories go back to when mammoths roamed the earth. Whether he is a freak of nature or a special Second sent to gather on-site information for the Firsts, is not clear. He looks, lives, and dies, like all the other Seconds. What makes Kayin different is that his former memories are repeatedly restored to him, by the Firsts. It is why he’s become aware of their secret meddling. Reluctantly he has agreed to do their bidding, such as showing up to witness major historical turning points.
Kayin is not sure whether the things he remembers were actually experienced by him; what he knows is that the memories belong to many people—men and women of every race, creed, caste, and culture. What connects all of these lives is his lost love: Y’lira the Fair.
Kayin has spent lifetime after lifetime searching for Y’lira. He cooperates with the Firsts in the hope he will eventually find her. It is why he must hold on to his identity as Kayin. For if he lost himself, he would also lose his precious memories of Y’lira. So he soldiers on, mission after mission, until he finds his love, or the Firsts at least allow him to return to their World.
His current assignment takes him to the city of Kaffa—besieged by the Mongols on the eve of the Great Plague. The Firsts have sent him there to rescue a redheaded little girl . . .
Book 1, Masks of God Synopsis - Part I: Borrowed Memories and the Search for Y’lira
The year is 1347. The place is Kaffa, Crimea—slave capital of the world. The city is besieged by the Golden Horde. Firebombs and plague-ridden corpses darken the sky. A solitary man with borrowed memories zigzags through the burning rubble in search of a redheaded girl. He is unsure of himself and his sanity, haunted by images of having been here before, only to find the young girl slain by an unknown hand. The man must disown these troubling memories if he is to push on, to brave the Mongol attack and the terrible scourge that became known as the Black Death. It is from Kaffa that the Great Dying commences, spreading throughout Europe, wiping out 50 million people, before it turns to Asia to take another 100 million lives.
The desperate man is unaware of the looming calamity. Rushing through the smoldering ramparts, he thinks he’s been given a second chance to rescue the girl.
The man’s name is Kayin, and he is plagued by recollections that seem thousands of years old. He blames a voice in his head for this condition, a mental intruder who restores the record of his previous experiences again and again. The unwanted meddler or Numen (“otherworldly presence” in Latin) conscripts Kayin to carry out certain tasks, such as witnessing historic events. The memories conveyed serve to remind Kayin of his obligations. As he puts it, where normal people have a conscience, he has a To Do list. At times he must save someone, like the redhead, who now tops his list.
These past experiences relayed by the Numen—belonging to men and women of every race, nation, and creed—conceivably go back to an original Kayin. Our hero accepts this possibility, and regards such memories as “borrowed.” How to tell the difference between one’s own and not one’s own? Memory is the key to identity, to a person’s sense of self, and current Kayin is stuck with his. This is not always a drawback—some recollections have become quite precious to him.
The most sublime and also most painful episodes from the past involve a lost love named Y’lira the Fair. Sublime because she saved his innermost being from self-hate and destruction. Painful because he had to lose her eventually. While he remembers finding Y’lira in a different life, she failed to recognize him, and so his love for her remained unrequited. Kayin located her again a couple of times, to no avail. Soon she was gone for good—or so his memories tell him.
Kayin never gives up searching for her. It explains his dilemma: He can’t wait to rid himself of the pesky voice in his head yet doing so would also cost him his only link to Y’lira. Losing his memories means losing everything. He’d be back to being little more than a beast in the field, or so he tells himself. Better to carry out the Numen’s doubtful missions, hoping against hope he will find his first love along the way.
Book 1, Masks of God Synopsis – Part II: Mission to the Hiding Land
Years pass. When the Numen's voice unexpectedly leaves Kayin to take up residence in a female oracle, he is initially overjoyed. He seeks to flee as fast and far as he can. But a new infatuation soon captures his heart. Is it the old love in disguise? He cannot tell. Before he can figure things out he winds up in the throes of his old mission, only deeper than before. Tasks he once performed grudgingly he now carries out willingly—driven by a mix of zeal and trepidation. Above all, he does not want to lose his newfound love interest.
Kayin’s beloved oversees a sisterhood of bane maidens (assassins), which complicates the situation. The group focuses primarily on saving women and children from bondage and sex-slavery. They call themselves the Masks of God and the Masks’ leader is the very redhead Kayin saved from burning Kaffa, now a fully-grown warrior chieftain. She comes up with a murderous plot to rid the world of Janibeg, Khan of the Golden Horde—the man who unleashed the Great Plague upon the world by catapulting plague-stricken corpses over the city walls. Even though Kayin is a committed pacifist at heart—Y’lira’s legacy—he must tag along, also because the outlandish plan has the Numen’s blessing.
When tragedy strikes within their ranks, Kayin realizes that the trials and tribulations he’s overcome thus far were only preparation for his final mission. The only way to preserve his identity, and to safeguard the memory of his loved ones, requires him to leave everyone behind—at least temporarily. What lies ahead is his most arduous and challenging assignment yet: a reconnaissance trip to a mysterious “Hiding Land” located on the “Unlit Shore.”
Some storytellers liken the place to Plato’s Cave, others herald it as the ravenous Future—an insatiable beast said to be pulling the very fabric of the universe into its bottomless maw, giving us in turn, Time’s Arrow.
What will Kayin find on the “Unlit Shore”? The Numen merely reveals it is home to the Silent Ones, a hive-like folk who are deaf to the voice of conscience and to the muses’ siren song. Their existence is governed by the Storm Age—the next upheaval to reshape the planet—and they have no religion other than to submit to the whims of a climate gone mad. This is reflected in their creed, which is:
To shape not the world to our likeness, but our likeness to that of the world.
(The Silent Ones’ story is told in Soul Engineer, Book 2 of the OC.)
Could this be humanity’s fate? The signs do point to such an outcome. Kayin must learn as much as he can before returning to his past, to his love, and to the Numen, to help shape the course of the world. Will he make it back in time? Will he lose his individuality to the hive people? Will he forget who he is? What if no one is around to restore his memories?
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