Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5)

by Dean C. Moore

  The first thing Santini wondered was if that’s where his hip arthritis came from, nurtured in this earlier lifetime from legs splayed and frozen in position for far too long riding horseback. Already he could feel Merek’s hips acting up. “This mount and I need some time away from one another,” he groused.

  “What king or queen could compel their soldiers to fight with such zeal?” Carac wondered out loud.

  “The bewitching kind.” Gloriana took the lead with her horse.

  Why are you here, Santini? Merek surveyed the countless dead all around them, head hanging low. If you’re responsible for all this, if you led all these men to a gruesome death, that could take its toll. And what lesson is to be derived from your mistake? Better strategizing, better intel, being a smarter leader, could have avoided such a fate? Perhaps. Might explain why you glommed on to Gretchen in hopes of smartening up, then as now. Could also explain why in the twenty-first Century, you’re not in charge of a whole lot of people. Born to an era where everyone has to find their own way, be leaders onto themselves. Maybe that’s how you’re licking your wounds, by proving to yourself these poor souls were fools for depending on you in the first place; they had no right to shoulder you with that burden.

  “Didn’t think an inert building could take the sight of me so personally,” Carac said, as the three of them watched the castle disappear in a rippling of water vapor, as if the whole thing had been a mirage.

  “Keep going,” Gloriana commanded.

  Merek’s and Carac’s horses, spooked by the disappearing castle, needed a little more convincing. Gloriana’s steed, unhesitant, trotted on.

  “Quod fuit, quod est,” Gloriana uttered in her spell-casting voice. “Make what was, what is.”

  The castle rematerialized before them.

  The gate opened in a gesture that seemed strangely welcoming, considering what had come before.

  “I preferred them when they were being cold and treacherous. At least they were consistent,” Carac said.

  Like bats fleeing a cave, winged gargoyles beset them in number, the size of mongrel dogs, fighting to keep bodies in the air that were not much more aerodynamic than falling stone. Santini reached for his sword with his left hand, his right, or fighting hand, still too depleted to lift the sword.

  Carac noticed how feebly Merek drew the sword, even with the left hand. “That’ll teach you to come in to this world with just two arms. Shiva, the Indian goddess of war has six arms. Tell me she hasn’t seen more than one battlefield.”

  Carac kept the creatures off Merek, considering Merek could do little but hammer the butt of the blade into their heads.

  Gloriana let fly more words of power. The gargoyles transformed, and God’s soldiers were suddenly surrounded by a flock of humming birds that flitted to within inches of their faces, before backing away to just beyond arm’s reach again.

  “Lovely,” Carac said. “Exactly how I expect to be harassed in heaven.”

  Gloriana ignored him, and headed the horse into the castle.

  “What happens when she finds a witch’s spell she can’t reverse?” Carac wondered aloud.

  “Gloriana isn’t moved by reason in the same way the rest of us are,” Merek replied.

  Carac sighed. “You think enough time has gone by for her to make it safe for her fearless knights to follow?”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  Merek continued to guard Gloriana in his own way by keeping his eyes on her. “Has it occurred to you that with nothing to complain about, you’d run out of jokes?”

  “Never. There’s always something to complain about. Like, why aren’t these humming birds singing to me?”

  Merek sported a tight-lipped smile, and sallied forth on his trusted steed, the horse nearly delirious from battle itself, only too anxious to drop his weight.

  Inside the castle walls, they met up with Gloriana, parked on her horse like a statue in the center of a courtyard. Bodies lay strewn about the grounds, rotting and decayed, the living looking worse than the dead.

  “Plague!” Carac shouted. “Cover your faces.” He brought his tunic up above his nose.

  “Just another mirage,” Gloriana informed them. “Their witch is old and weak. I can sense her.”

  Carac relaxed his posture, cleared the airway to his lungs. “I miss the days when I could trust my senses.

  They rode on, trotting through the entrance of the castle within a castle.

  Inside the second castle, the young queen had surrounded herself with the prettiest lads in all the land, artisans and soldiers alike. No one was over the age of twenty five, except for the women, who were all much older than the queen, and sufficiently trollish to be entirely undesirable. “I thought those were some of the ugliest humans I’ve ever fought,” Carac said. “She may be young, but she definitely has a sense of how to maintain a strategic advantage.”

  Still perched atop their horses, Gloriana, Merek, and Carac scrutinized the young queen at eye level. Ensconced in her throne chair on a raised platform, she was used to holding the high ground when commoners approached her, and seemed a little thrown. Beside her, the old crone stood, eyes milked over, nearly blind.

  “Tell your witch we mean you no harm,” Gloriana said, addressing the queen.

  The queen comfortingly squeezed the old crone’s hand to signal her. No doubt the old woman was as deaf as she was blind.

  “You could have spared your soldiers,” Gloriana said. “I gather your witch sensed my presence, and assumed the worst. We seek only safe passage across your land.”

  “What is the nature of your quest?” the queen asked.

  “We seek the bringer of wisdom,” Gloriana replied.

  “He is but a myth,” the queen insisted. From the way she clenched the handles of her chair, Merek sensed she felt him a threat, all the same.

  “I hope not for your sake, young queen,” Gloriana said, “lest you remain callow and without substance the rest of your days.”

  Gloriana turned her horse about, prompting Carac and Merek to do the same. They made their exit every bit as curtly as they’d made their entrance.

  “He’s just a myth, I tell you!” the young queen, rising from her chair, shouted at them.

  Carac said, “Funny how the bringer of truth can set people’s nerves on edge so.”

  ***

  “Bringer of truth, huh?” Carac eyed the unforgiving terrain ahead of them. He mounted up. The view didn’t look any less intimidating from horseback. “Halfway across that ungodly expanse we won’t need her anymore; we’ll be getting visions of our own, and dispensing the condensed truths of a lifetime in our dying breaths.”

  Merek sighed. “He may be a whining, bellyaching, pissing and moaning, old fart, Gloriana, but he just so happens to be right this time.” He had to squint just to see past the intense sun and haze. He was half-hoping he could see to the other side where he might find solace in knowing their journey would one day be over. “Don’t know why the queen was so adamant to sacrifice her forces to keep us from getting to her, when the land in her domain could have done the job for her.”

  “Keep it up, you two, and you’ll be trying to talk without any tongues.”

  Carac wasn’t amused.

  Santini, along for the ride inside Merek’s head, had to admit that, for all his complaining, Carac was a slightly grittier version of Mort. Best he be thankful he wasn’t so much grittier he’d have shot both his sidekicks and eaten them to sustain him on his journey into the corporeal equivalent of oblivion.

  Merek snorted. “They call this land Extremadura.” He signaled his horse to catch up with Gloriana.

  “My Spanish isn’t so good, but I think I catch the gist just fine.” Raising his voice, he shouted to Merek, “Glad to know I have some confirmation I’m not being melodramatic.” Then, with some effort, he made his horse advance; the animal seemed smart enough to show reluctance to proceed, as well.

  ***

  “I see her, I tell yo
u.” Carac focused on a point before his eyes like an archer taking aim.

  “See who?” Merek said.

  “The bringer of truth, who else?”

  Merek sighed. He leaned into the post on his saddle and lifted himself up, resting his behind a while. In the baking heat, he wasn’t surprised Carac was seeing mirages. Still he had to be sure. “Prove it.”

  “She says we’re ten degrees off course. She’s pointing us in the direction we need to go.”

  Gloriana’s eyes went wide. “Another witch, possibly, if it’s not the heat messing with his mind.”

  “Tell her we need a few more assurances.” Merek waited impatiently for an answer, not sure how much more time they could afford to lose to Carac’s delusions.

  “She says I started making jokes to numb the pain of the loss of my wife. Now I use it so I don’t have to feel any emotion, good or bad, mistaking the numbness for a kind of inner peace.”

  “That’s her, all right,” Gloriana said, scooting her horse closer. “No one but the bringer of truth could pluck from his mind just what she needed to set him free.”

  “I guess that puts you in the lead, Carac,” Merek said. “If you’re willing to get over yourself upon hearing the truth, you can give your gift of numbness to me; seems like a good time for it with saddle sore taking hold.”

  “It’ll take more than a few choice words for me to get over myself.” As disagreeable as ever, Carac steered his horse in the direction the bringer of truth was walking.

  She continued to materialize for him whenever he started to veer off course again, unable to find a landmark prominent enough to lock in the direction. Merek could tell because Carac kept saying, “My God, she’s beautiful.”

  ***

  “Your morose nature is hard to peel apart, Merek.” It was the bringer of truth. This was the first time she had appeared to Merek, and he had to admit, Carac was right: she was quite beautiful. Maybe she needed to hypnotize in order to get her subjects to listen to her, to soften them up enough for the painful truths to take hold.

  Santini, along for the ride inside Merek’s head, recognized the bringer of truth as Robin Wakefield, looking not too different in this life.

  Her image rippled in the heat like a flag, as if to call Merek’s attention to the soothing breeze he was too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice and take comfort in.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked. Gloriana brought her horse closer, realizing intuitively perhaps he was not talking to himself, but to the bringer of truth.

  “Your constant fault-finding with yourself is meant to goad you to do better and is born of noble intent. For the most part it succeeds, but at a steep cost. Keeping yourself in a dark place is also your way of doing penance for those times you were convinced you could have done better, have saved more souls. Remorse can be a great teacher, Merek. It just can’t be your only teacher.”

  Merek noticed his eyes were watering. “I resolve to do better,” he muttered.

  “Hey, are you trying to steal my girl?” Carac said.

  Merek chuckled, feeling himself lightening up already, merely with the shifting of intent. “You could say that. I promised her I’d change myself if only she’d keep appearing to me.”

  Carac said, “Ah, I deplore weak-willed men.”

  “She wants me to lighten up, which I guess means I have to start appreciating your bad jokes more.” Merek glanced over at Gloriana and brushed the hair out of her eyes.

  “Be nice to have a more receptive audience for a change,” Carac mumbled.

  He gestured for Merek to take the lead. “I guess it’s just plain old mirages for me from now on; should suffice for my humbler soul.”

  Gloriana smiled. “Better not chase them away with your foul temper. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “Got that right.” Carac brought his horse in line behind Gloriana. “Forgive me, but your behind is the only thing I have to sustain me between mirages.”

  Merek couldn’t shake the feeling the bringer of truth was in mortal danger. Maybe a consequence of her opening a bridge to his mind. That made it that much harder for him to express levity. If anything, his old behaviors seemed to gain in strength as he felt even more compelled to drive himself harder, flagellate himself more; anything to get him to her in time to rescue her.

  ***

  Merek rode his horse into position alongside Gloriana. “Is there some spell you can cast over us to give us greater endurance, to extend the efforts of our horses, for that matter?”

  “How do you think we’ve made it this far? I can do no more without killing you.” She surveyed Merek’s expression. “The bringer of truth is in mortal danger, isn’t she? Something you sense, or something you were told?”

  Merek took a deep breath. He augmented his efforts to reinvigorate himself by finding a new posture his body hadn’t already over-used to the point of causing pain. “Something I sense.”

  Gloriana said, “You must fulfill the mission she assigned you, all the same. If she fails to drive change in others, she will weaken, hastening her demise.”

  “How can that be?” Merek said.

  “It is that way for all of us. Success at our life mission is directly correlated with our survival. Fail to progress along that path, and we all start dying to be reborn in another time and place where we can be more effective. Otherwise, our souls would cease to evolve; they would actually regress over time.”

  Merek smiled. “You’re not so bad at dispensing truth, yourself.”

  “For one and all, just not for each individually. That takes more patience and love for people than I can muster.”

  ***

  The Duero River materialized before Merek’s eyes, a vision too bold to be a mere mirage.

  “My God. Now that’s what I call a vision,” Carac said, and charged ahead of them.

  Even the horses couldn’t be persuaded to merely dip their heads for a drink, but waded all the way in. Their riders plunged from their backs to frolic in the warm water.

  “You don’t swim,” Merek reminded Carac.

  “But apparently the horse does, so all is good,” Carac proclaimed laughing. He dunked his head below the water while holding on to the reins of the horse.

  ***

  Later, when they had finally emerged from the water, Carac said, “I’d like to commemorate this moment by killing something. I think I’ll start with that tree over there. Build us a nice fire.” He reached for his sword, dangling alongside his horse, unsheathed it and pranced toward the tree in question.

  “I’ve never seen a tree cut down with a broad sword before,” Gloriana said.

  “Nor have I,” Merek remarked. “I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it myself.” He drew his sword and followed after Merek.

  Gloriana shook her head. “Take a couple of meat heads, cook them under the sun for weeks, and what do you get? A couple of vegetables.”

  ***

  “Want to hear some jokes?” Merek asked.

  Carac glanced up from the fire and the stick he was wielding to stir it, and exchanged a “this should be interesting” glance with Gloriana.

  “Don’t be like that. I do have a sense of humor,” Merek protested.

  “Since when?” Carac said.

  “Play nice, you two.” Gloriana pointed to Carac. “If you can make this one laugh at anything but his own jokes, I’m in.” She went back to staring at the fire to steady her mind, perhaps making the best use of her time by divining some new spells.

  Merek went back to his mumbling, “This is you trying to lighten up just because the bringer of truth put a bug up your ass. You’ll get much further in life by learning to lie to yourself, than by facing the truth. Trust me. I only agreed to go along on this quest because I’m no good if I don’t have someone to annoy. Don’t think it’s because I put much stock in what that witch says. No disrespect intended to our current witch. At least her spell casting serves some good use.”

  “I’m glad you�
��re feeling relatively humorless tonight,” Merek said. “Takes some of the pressure off me to be funny. I am an amateur at this.”

  Merek cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “A king was preparing to ride off on a quest. Before he leaves, he locks up the queen with a chastity belt and calls in his most trusted knight and hands him the key. ‘Sir Percival, here is the key to my queen's honor. Should I fall in battle, it is to you to release her from her belt so she might marry again.’ He then leaves on his journey.

  “At the top of a hill, he turns back for one last look at his castle and is surprised to see Sir Percival riding breakneck in pursuit. ‘My lord, my lord... wait! You have given me the wrong key!’”

  He was greeted with dead silence.

  Finally Carac erupted in laughter. Merek had never heard him laugh so hard. “Well, why didn’t you tell me they were going to be dirty jokes?” Carac said. “All is forgiven a man who tells dirty jokes.”

  Gloriana smiled despite herself.

  Merek cleared his throat before commencing with round two. “A knight returned to the king’s castle with prisoners, bags of gold, and other riches from his victories. ‘Tell me of your battles,’ said the king.

  “‘Well, sire, I have been robbing and stealing on your behalf for weeks, burning all of the villages of your enemies in the north.’

  “The king was horrified. ‘But I have no enemies in the north,’ he said.

  “‘Well,’ said the knight, ‘you do now.’”

  Carac laughed less heartily than before. “All right, enough with the jokes fit for old women and young children. Get back to the stuff suitable only to knights.”