THE TREE THAT GREW THROUGH IRON
Book One of the Panagea Tales
McKenzie Austin
The Tree That Grew Through Iron by McKenzie Austin. Published by KDP.
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© 2018 McKenzie Austin
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact McKenzie Austin.
Edited by Andrea Raymaker
Cover by Biserka Cover Designs
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-692-12485-7
Map by exoniensis of Fiverr
Hello, dear readers and friends. Did you know that between the major and minor cast of The Panagea Tales tetralogy, there exists upwards of forty individuals to keep track of?
To make things easier, I have included a Character Glossary in the back of the book. For your comfort, individuals will be listed alphabetically by first name, as some of our delightful gods and goddesses do not have surnames to speak of. Please note THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THE CHARACTER GLOSSARY.
Thank you very much for your support on this journey. It’s been incredible interacting with all of those who have reached out.
Chapter One
The natural world died. Mankind stripped the land of its trees, its creatures, and its essence. People claimed the rocks, the rubble, and all the structures upon it. Old world gods disappeared from memory. Machines of iron and steam laid waste to inefficiency. The inhabitants of Panagea massacred the organic, undomesticated wild. But the cruel touch of humanity only stretched so far. They killed the land, but the sea did not relent to their selfish desires.
The sea remained alive.
The storm outside rocked the ocean vessel, bucking it over the waves like a wild stallion. Lightning split the sky in two, illuminating the ebbs and flows of the violent water. Waves slammed the ship’s aging boards with the thunderous force of an army on the march.
The liveliness of the elements outside contrasted with the lifelessness of the body that slumped over a table within one of the ship’s many cabins.
A scarlet liquid crawled out from beneath the fallen maiden’s head. It oozed down the imperfect table, slithering until it teetered on the edge. The gruesome scene became lit by lightning flashes through a small window, highlighting the inanimate woman’s pale skin.
A knock sounded at the door, almost inaudible between the screams of old wood creaking under the strength of an unforgiving sea.
The body remained unmoving.
Another knock, more forceful the second time, gathered a similar response. Silence.
Additional beads of red liquid dragged themselves to the edge of the table. They formed a larger puddle that slipped over, dangling, until another chaotic wave shifted the ship. The droplet fell from the ledge, enjoying the last of its existence before it struck the floor and exploded.
The woman’s eyes shot open.
She blinked several times to banish the fatigue from her body as she sat upright. Angry pops from her spine voiced their disapproval for passing out in an uncomfortable position. “Gods be damned,” she hissed, wiping the blood-red stain of wine from her cheek. Her eyes fell when she realized she not only spilled it all over the table but passed out in the puddle. The captain would not be pleased the last of his natural wine flowed more through the cracks in the floorboards than through her veins.
A third knock banished the haze from her brain. She stood, boots clicking on the floor as she approached the door and pulled it open. “Evening, Captain,” she grumbled, pushing a chunk of hair glued together by wine out of her eyes. “Awfully late to be running around all willy-nilly in a lady’s quarters, don’t you think?”
A well-timed crack of lightning silhouetted his form, making it difficult to gauge his facial expression. The dark figure crept into her room, staggering in height. “I hate to get your hopes up, Bermuda,” he muttered sarcastically, “but this isn’t a late-night booty call.”
“Well, shucks.” Bermuda feigned disappointment as she stretched, trying to get blood flowing back into her fingertips. “Then to what do I owe this pleasure?”
The captain turned to face her, his eyes unable to contain his thrill. With the passion of a madman, he whispered through a grin, “We found it.”
It took a moment for her fuzzy mind to catch up with his words. Once his message settled over her, the adrenaline fueling her body disbanded any lingering aches. “The well?” Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You found the well?”
“Mimir’s well,” he laughed, slamming an open palm on her table in excitement. “We should be there in seven days.”
Bermuda looked up at the captain, her jaw slack. Gods, could it truly be? Mimir’s well promised to be their biggest score. The deity was a prize more valuable than the loot they had pulled up from Gargan’s wreckage, more esteemed than the fabled Book of Plythius they plundered from the coves, more lusted after than any mythological treasure they had ever tracked from the tales passed down by ancient orators.
Several versions of the story floated around the world, but the bottom line remained the same: a sacrifice to Mimir, and water from his well, ensured one’s deepest fantasy shifted from hopeless want into reality.
Bermuda’s gaze hit the floor as she tried to absorb the confession. Mimir’s well. It was a rare find. Panagea, and the dried husks of land surrounding, it did not have many of the old world wonders left. Gods and goddesses, brought to life through mankind's imagination, were replaced long ago when men found they could answer their own prayers with newly blossoming technology. They did not need to appease the gods to grow their crops when they could mass produce their own food-like products. They did not need to beg for their favor when they fell ill if they could manufacture their own medicines. Without sacrifice and prayer to sustain them, the gods and goddesses fell away from existence.
It was not just the deities that remained in short supply; all legends of old were difficult to come by. The crew shared limited successes in myth hunting, often supplementing their time by plundering more literal treasures instead.
“Kazuaki Hidataka,” Bermuda smiled at the man, having no shame in dropping the formality of addressing her captain by his name instead of his rank, “it’s moments like this that make serving with you bearable.”
Kazuaki slicked his hands through his damp mass of long, black hair. A slow smirk crept across his face. “I’ll drink to that.”
Bermuda’s face fell as Kazuaki reached over to the dusty bottle atop the table. His aura of enthusiasm faded into one of irritation. “Bermuda …” He raised the bottle and tipped it upside down to draw attention to its glaring emptiness. “I can’t help but notice you sullied the table with my Meritage Bordeaux ...”
“Not before it sullied my liver,” she quipped, trying to downplay the offense. She knew the bottles were precious to him and tried to respect the fact, but some nights were longer than others. Sometimes man-made alcohol just didn't fill the hole. She bent over, using her sleeve to soak up some of the mess. “How many bottles do you have left from those ruins, anyway?”
“Not enough,” Kazuaki murmured, staring at the red liquid that seeped into the wooden table’s imperfections. “In the future, I would prefer you not drown your sorrows with irreplaceable harvests.”
Though he tempered the heat in his words, she felt his disdain like a physical force. Bermuda understood his frustration. These were not the days of old where grapes grew with the loving influence of a tender vineyard ke
eper. Grapes were only a memory now. Bermuda had read many accounts. They seemed to be a popular delicacy, their praises sung of in the memoirs of olden days.
Though she’d never admit it out loud, she adored reading those ancient transcripts. They transported her to a time where her own troubles could not follow. To an imaginary land where philosophy and hands-on work reigned supreme. Those journal entries painted a simpler life, where oxygen flowed like rivers over the world. Though the authors of those texts were long dead, their words brought that time to life.
Funny how several hundred years changed a landscape so much.
“This still deserves a toast,” Bermuda said, breaking the silence. “How about something from the storage cellar as opposed to the private stash?”
Kazuaki spit on the floor. “Mass-produced rubbish.” He scowled. “If I wanted to blacken my tongue with that toxic sludge, I’d have brought a bottle with me.”
Bermuda stared at him, a knowing look on her face as she crossed her arms. She waited with patience.
The captain stared back, drawing out the long pause between them before he sighed. She knew him too well. He pulled a flask from his long jacket’s pocket. “To the well,” he toasted, taking a sip from the container before handing it to his comrade.
Bermuda smiled, raising the flask. “To the well.” She took a swig of her own.
The two stood in the cabin, absorbing the impact of the moment. If all went well, their lives would be very different by next week. Bermuda grinned, delighting in the fantasy of an existence free from her biggest flaw. When her thoughts shifted to what the captain would ask for, a frown took the place of her glee. She glanced at him, studying the man. He seldom spoke of his condition, but alcohol had pulled it out of him more than a few times in their adventures. Bermuda knew Kazuaki lamented his circumstances, despite how comforting she found them to be.
“Will you ask him for it then?” she wondered out loud, unwilling to wait seven days to find out for herself. “Mortality?”
The captain pressed his lips together as he stood in the shadowed room. He had many long years to experience the pros and cons of an unending life. There existed no shortage of men or women who would have thought him crazy for trying to rid himself of his affliction, but only those who walked his path knew the crushing weight eternal life had on a man. On a soul.
Individuals clamored for immortality. Ancient texts highlighted it as a glamorous boon, never having to worry about the prospect of death. Kazuaki Hidataka knew better. He did not choose eternal life. He was cursed with it. “Yes.” He stroked his beard, unable to look at her. “I believe I will.”
Bermuda’s gaze fell to the floor. It seemed the years her captain and comrade chased after freedom from his pestilence would finally pay off. She struggled to understand why he wanted to invite the opportunity for death into his life, but Bermuda suspected the captain knew a great deal more about the nightmares of an everlasting existence than she did.
The quartermaster’s frown grew more potent. Accepting the loss of a loved one had never come easy to her. Contrary to Kazuaki's desires, Bermuda loved that no risk existed of losing him. It provided her with a permanent sense of relief.
As the silence between them grew, her gaze flicked over to him. He wanted this. She knew he had hunted it for many hundreds of years. Perhaps she could cling to a small hope he might change his mind. “Well”—she hitched her shoulder, forcing a smirk—“just don’t go rushing into any suicide missions after it’s done.”
Kazuaki caught her stare. He saw the anxiety that lingered in it. “I have no desire to run rushing toward the afterlife, Bermuda.” One side of his lips tugged into a half-grin. “Only the desire to see it one day. With any luck before the world sees it first.”
The captain turned away and pulled his shoulders back. He was not blind to the struggles of their realm. Panagea suffered. The land’s obvious cries for help prompted him to find the cure to immortality sooner rather than later. He shuddered to think of what madness awaited him if the world—and everything in it—withered away to nothingness while he remained to endure it.
Kazuaki glanced at Bermuda to survey her reaction. She seemed to accept his response, at least as much as he expected her to. “So,” the immortal cleared his throat, “what will you ask of him?”
Bermuda’s warm face iced over. Kazuaki flinched. He held fast to their unmoving eye contact, though he regretted asking after the shift in her demeanor.
The quartermaster lowered her gaze to the empty flask as if willing it to refill itself. “You know damn well what I would ask of him.”
Kazuaki’s shoulders tightened. “Yes.” He tucked his hands behind his back and stepped away from her. “I suppose I do.”
Damn it all. Awkward moments rarely existed between the two, but he walked straight into this one. He should have known how she’d react. Kazuaki had mastered the art of tempering his feelings, particularly those involving his quartermaster, but Bermuda ... she wore her heart on her sleeve. In the susceptible position in which she left it, it was her heart that caused her the most trouble.
Kazuaki stole a glimpse of her in the dark. He saw the invisible burdens she carried with her. Even in her rare moments of vulnerability, he still witnessed her fierceness. Her loyalty. Irreplaceable, enigmatic, and one of the best things to happen to him in his many, many lives. Bermuda may have despised her heart, but Kazuaki adored it.
He cursed his inability to claim a piece of it for himself, but inevitable heartbreak lived in tales where mortals and immortals mingled.
The captain’s eardrums pulsed, honing in on the uproarious laughter of the crew in the dining hall. He did not shed the light on the good news to them yet. It had been more pressing to relay it to Bermuda first.
He remained dutiful to those he employed. They were always hand-picked for possessing one positive quality or another, but Kazuaki admitted to playing favorites. Some were just more trustworthy than others. Life taught him that hard lesson in the years and years spent with people. The generation they hailed from made no difference; bad apples who suffered from irreparable character flaws always hid amongst the masses.
He should tell them, he thought. Kazuaki cringed at the reality of it. It would be a long seven days sailing with a ship full of men and women who were about to have their deepest wishes come true. He hoped the dynamic of his crew didn’t change much when they found out. It did not surprise him anymore how quick a man turned ugly, given the right conditions ... even trusted ones.
Pacing the room, the captain’s thoughts drifted back to earlier days. Since man first gathered around prehistoric fires, stories spread of their evil and greed. Kazuaki witnessed plenty instances for himself. He once saw a man murder his own brother over ownership of a prize as small as a dead animal carcass. He beheld another man mutilate a farmer over a handful of pumpkin seeds. A woman drowned her own child at the docks where he had worked hundreds of years ago, before the art of seafaring died. Her action was bred out of nothing more than sheer spite that her child’s father chose a life at sea, rather than a life with his own family.
Realizing how much tension invaded his shoulders, Kazuaki forced his muscles to relax. He had to remind himself that the unflattering characters of his memory were nothing like his present-day crew. He knew what psychological characteristics to look for in someone he gave his trust to. Of course, it remained wise to always inject a healthy amount of caution into each situation. Many books and tales of betrayal regarding mankind’s hideousness flew through his ship. Kazuaki never surmised why men recorded as much of their history as they did, being that the vast majority of it was unflattering.
His eyes widened and he patted his jacket. The musings put him in mind of the contents in his other pocket. “I almost forgot,” he muttered, reaching to pull the small, leather-bound book from its hiding place. “While Bartholomew and I were sifting through ancient texts for documents on Mimir, I found this.” Kazuaki handed the dilapidated bo
ok to Bermuda. “I know how much you enjoy peering into the eyes of the past.”
Bermuda accepted the gift, cradling it in her open palm. Her fingers ran over the cover, though not too hard, as the book survived in such a state it seemed a soft breeze could destroy it. A peaceful smile fell over her. “Thank you.” She flipped the cover open and turning to a random entry. “Join me in a listen?”
The captain stared at her, locked in eye contact that would betray his feelings of disinterest had he not perfected the ability to contain his emotions. Kazuaki cared little about the contents of that journal. He had already lived everything the pages ever contained and more. He skimmed the book for any mention of mythological sites they could plunder, but he’d only made it through the first couple of entries before passing it off as a tedious record of daily activity belonging to a man long dead. It didn’t matter that this particular journal had been penned by an important man, one of the Time Fathers of the Northern division from many years prior. Even important men were irrelevant to Kazuaki Hidataka. “Of course,” he found himself saying. At least it would be a short opportunity to enjoy Bermuda's company.
The corner of her lips formed half a smile as her eyes flitted to the page. “The push to modernize comes strongly from the Time Fathers of individual divisions,” she read aloud, her finger sliding beneath the words as she spoke, “but to what end? Can the convenience provided by the cold touch of metal and steel ever outweigh the romance of natural products? A metal pole can plunge through the earth with more strength than a wooden stake, for sure, but at the end of the day, with proper structure, each still holds the cow in the pasture ...” She trailed off, wrinkling her nose. “What the feck is a cow?”
Kazuaki stared out the small window in her cabin, watching the storm. “A large beast fit for eating, milking, shitting, and not much else.”
Bermuda let out a small chuckle and skipped to a different entry. “There never was so perfect a thing than the burst of those cherry tomatoes on my tongue; small spheres of scarlet sweetness that exploded and melted over my buds-" Bermuda’s soft laughter from before grew louder as she peered at Kazuaki. “Paints himself as a bit of a dandy, aye?”
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