The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  “I forgot how awful you boys were when you were together,” Brack said, though he laughed, still humored by their prank despite being its subject. “Keep it up and I’ll send you back to that bed of yours, Renn.”

  “I’m never going back to that shit hole,” he said as he found Elowyn’s face in the crowd. “No offense, E.P.”

  Elowyn’s eyes were closed as she leaned back in the sand, her features aglow with the gentle warmth of the fire. “None taken,” she replied, sifting her fingers through the soft beach beneath her.

  Penn busied himself by breaking down the deer, sectioning certain chunks of meat and removing the skin. Granite played fetch with his dog on the shoreline, but everyone else gathered around the allure of the flames. Kazuaki shifted in discomfort when Bermuda closed the distance between them, once again within earshot of the captain’s voice. Umbriel smiled with a silent apology directed at Kazuaki. His change in demeanor told her he wanted to wait for a private moment before entering a conversation. The Earth Mother walked closer to the others and found a seat of her own. Kazuaki joined with a mild irritation that his opportunity for discussion had to wait once again.

  “I’m so pleased to have company,” Umbriel addressed the crew with the same warmth and comfort as the fire before them. Her honeyed words held a sense of calm. The Earth Mother possessed an aura of kindness. It had a sedating effect. “Please, tell me, what led you all to a life at sea? Did the sweet song of the siren call you to her waters?”

  “Wasn’t exactly a siren,” Brack interjected with a grin, “and the Cap’s voice ain’t all that sweet, but he called to me, nonetheless!”

  “Please, like you wouldn’t try to seduce him if he put on a dress,” Iani cracked, looking at Umbriel as he thumbed toward the Rabbit. “This fecker only joined the crew so he could bang broads in every division and leave before the sun rose.”

  “Oi!” Brack threw up his hands, feigning insult. They lingered there for a moment before he dropped them back down into his lap and smirked. “Nah, he’s right on that.” He looked over at Umbriel and winked.

  She blinked at him once and smiled, then turned to gaze upon the rest. “Fascinating. And you, Iani? Did you also join to ‘bang broads’?” she asked, trying to adopt their dialect.

  The younger Platts brother turned a shade of beet red and shook his head. “No, no, no, I would never—I mean, I would, but that’s not why I joined Kazuaki—”

  Rennington doubled over in laughter at Iani’s embarrassment and smacked his brother on his back. Between laughs, he choked out, “Good gods, Iani, you always been this smooth with women?”

  “Rennington and I were footmen in Southern,” Iani blurted out, desperate to change the subject and shake the mortification away. “We served under Darjal for years.”

  “Aye,” Rennington chuckled again, joining in after he got his amusement under control. “We were damn good at it too, weren’t we, brother?”

  Iani grinned and nodded an affirmation. “Damn good.” Before long, his cocky expression faded. “Too good. We killed many people in the name of Darjal Wessex and his feckin’ religion.”

  Nicholai lifted his head, curious. He stared at the two brothers in the light of the fire. They appeared remorseful for their actions, which made little sense to him, as he witnessed them kill several others and show no regret at all. Umbriel sounded from her place, pity dripping in her voice, “Oh ... that’s unfortunate. And how did you find Kazuaki when you belonged to Southern?”

  Rennington stared at the ground, the embers reflected in his eyes as he pulled forward all the memories he tried to bury long ago. “We just assassinated a small resistance ... a group of townsfolk who no longer wished to be forced into church attendance. It was about twenty, twenty-five people. Darjal referred to them as ‘the sinners’. Many of them left children behind.” He paused. His ears burned as he remembered the sounds of those children’s shrieks, how they begged not for their own lives, but the lives of their mothers and fathers. The hair on his arms stood on end. The memory chilled him. He looked away, unable to continue.

  Iani observed his brother and looked down; shame consumed him. “Darjal did not wish to drain the division’s treasury by providing for the orphaned children,” he explained. The words spewed out of him as if they were poison on his tongue. “He ordered us to do away with them.”

  Nicholai’s stomach sank at this revelation. Another punch in the gut from an already merciless day. He knew Darjal practiced ‘old world’ tactics compared to the other rulers, but never in his life did he imagine the Southern Time Father would order the deaths of children. Nicholai had a hard time adjusting to the knowledge the Time Fathers of old lived as murderers but to learn that behavior still existed today ... the Southeastern Time Father felt ill. He touched his Chronometer again as it dangled about his chest. It symbolized something once so revered to him. Now he could not picture it without it being covered in the blood of women and children.

  Umbriel’s gentle gaze landed on the Platts brothers. “Did you do it?” she asked.

  “No,” Rennington spoke up again, feeling guilty that his younger brother had to tell the ugliest part of their tale. “No, we did not pull our triggers ... but we watched like feckin’ cowards as the other soldiers did. We told them our guns jammed to avoid any whispers of impending betrayal. Iani and I left Southern that night and found Elowyn in a small coastal town.” He grinned. “She was plundering supplies for the captain. She told us of Kazuaki Hidataka, and we haven’t looked back since. Well,” he paused, “unless we looked back to steal shit from that sorry son of a bitch, Darjal.”

  A wave of commiseration washed over Umbriel as she watched the brothers bathe in old memories of regret. “People tend to forget that it is their own choices which dictate how they spend the rest of their lives.” She brushed hair out of her eyes. “Though you live in guilt for your past choices, you must rejoice that you made a new one that is better for your conscience. There is not a man or woman among us who has not made mistakes ... but as long as you breathe, you have an opportunity to do better. To be better. And so you have.”

  Rennington and Iani looked at Umbriel for some time before they both bowed their heads. “Thanks, Umbriel,” Rennington whispered as he took a sip from the mug of alcohol Granite hauled out from the ship earlier. Her words did not make the weight of their sins disappear, but it took the sting off.

  “It isn’t just Southern’s military that’s gone to shit,” Elowyn murmured as she took a long drink. She wiped the liquid that spilled around her lips with her sleeve before she added, “Northern’s is just as bad.”

  “Is it?” Nicholai looked up, his eyes fell on Elowyn. Northern belonged to Nordjan. Of all the Time Fathers and their divisions, his father included, he thought he knew Nordjan the best. The man possessed a roughness and focused on success, but Nicholai always admired his drive. He didn’t want to believe Nordjan was as callous as Darjal Wessex. He already suffered through enough unfortunate revelations today.

  Elowyn scowled at Nicholai and spit. “Good men died trying to create Nordjan’s vision of efficiency. He ran his footmen to the ground, subcontracting them to perform duties suited to engineers and general laborers just to save time and money. Then the war at the border with Northeastern broke out when Nordjan tried to claim some of Aggi Normandy’s territory. He sent waves of overworked, exhausted soldiers into those battles, unfit for anything other than collapsing from the inhuman conditions.” Her shoulders tensed with rage. “There was nothing I could do for them medically accept administer more adrenaline. They were so brainwashed by him, so terrified to disappoint him, they would not allow themselves rest. We would have lost that war. The quality of Aggi’s soldiers was far superior, but we had him beat in numbers and tech. Nordjan sent fleets of flying machines into battle. Ornithopters filled with men, ordered to fly into the mobs of Northeastern soldiers. They were suicide missions. So many lives lost ...”

  Including her two brothers, Nic
holai surmised. He remembered the short war between the Northern and Northeastern Division. It only lasted a week. Nordjan mentioned it at one of their meetings but did not go into great detail, except to claim his victory and condemn Aggi’s hostility. Nicholai never looked into it further. He should have. But it ended as soon as it began and faded from his memory long ago. Nicholai wondered if more existed to that story than he was privy to. There seemed to be more to a lot of things than he was privy to. “To think I’ve been working under a history of evil this entire time,” he said, his words trailing off as he sat on his log.

  Kazuaki’s eye found Nicholai through the smoke of the fire. He leaned forward, propping his forearm on his leg. “Is that what you believe?” he asked. “Good versus evil? Like life is some gods-damned epic poem or something?”

  Nicholai lifted his head and stared at the captain. He held surprise Kazuaki addressed him since he often ignored Nicholai unless to humiliate him or crush him into a wall. “The Time Fathers’ history is one of murder and forceful submissions," he stated intensely. “Would you not call that evil?”

  Kazuaki’s look flattened. He lifted a flask and drew a long, slow drink from the metal container. He exhaled the sharp taste of the alcohol and set the flask down. “Good and evil, they’re abstract terms,” the captain said as he stared at the dejected Time Father. “There is no right or wrong, Nico. Only men and women doing what they think is right. Sometimes it’s self-serving. Sometimes it’s not. Pray tell, you see a man kill a woman, what’s your initial thought?”

  Nicholai’s face twisted into one of disgust. “That he’s a monster or a madman.”

  “Now,” Kazuaki continued, “imagine that woman murdered their child. Imagine that woman then tried to murder him. Does it still make him a monster?”

  Nicholai fell silent, but after a moment, he shook his head. “You may justify away your actions for taking another’s life, Captain. Forgive me for being unable to arrive at the same level of exoneration,” he replied, heat in his words.

  Umbriel sat up straighter and shifted on her log. “I am a believer in protecting life too, Nico. But I believe what Kazuaki is trying to say, is a man does not set out to do evil for evil’s sake.”

  “Precisely,” the captain leaned back in his seat. “The sooner you let go of that, the sooner peoples’ actions become far clearer to you. Human psychology is a tool. Get into their minds and you’ll know everything you need to. Right and wrong ... they don’t exist. People are predictable. They do what helps them sleep at night. They do what’s right for them. Just so happens that what’s right for them is sometimes wrong for others.”

  Nicholai looked appalled. He stood to his feet, fighting the urge to shout. “Can you really sit there, hiding behind your ridiculous rationalizations, telling me it’s okay for men, women, and children to be murdered simply because it aligns with someone else’s vision of utopia? Is that how you sleep at night, Captain? Do you all hide behind the same rationale?” he gazed at the captain and the crew.

  Kazuaki ground his teeth, taking a bite out of the deer leg he clutched in his hand. “I’d choose your next words carefully, Nico, lest you find yourself without a tongue to speak these righteous thoughts of yours.”

  Umbriel stood from her place on the log; her face was not stern, but her energy projected an unyielding firmness. “Gentlemen,” she exchanged glances between Nicholai and Kazuaki, “control yourselves. Nico had a difficult day.” She held her hands out and lowered them as if it would somehow deescalate the growing contempt. “Let us all calm ourselves, be thankful for this bounty, and carry on with what has been a lovely evening until this moment.”

  She had a way about her. The Earth Mother’s presence soothed the egos of those involved as if by a supernatural force. Nicholai breathed in and closed his eyes before he sat back down. It did not pay to further engage with the captain. His ideals were older than Nicholai, himself. They were from two different worlds crafted with conflicting principles.

  Kazuaki glared at Nicholai and took another swig of liquor. He glanced once at Umbriel, swallowed, and eased himself back into a less offensive position. It did not pay to further engage with the Time Father. His youth filled him with unrealistic ideals. All that, and Time Fathers were arrogant pricks.

  Bermuda stared at Elowyn. The quartermaster didn’t pay attention to the rage that rose between her captain and the Time Father. She dwelled too much on the medic’s words from before, losing herself in them throughout Kazuaki and Nicholai’s impassioned conversation. It wasn’t until they calmed down she announced, “I recall a strong dislike for Northern’s military too.” Her face appeared frenzied as she struggled to bring a memory forward. Everyone turned to look at her, growing more alarmed with each second she sat in her confusion. The quartermaster lifted panicked eyes to Elowyn at first but shifted them to Kazuaki. “I don’t remember why.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first,” Bartholomew interrupted, trying to stop Bermuda before she slipped further into her alarm. “None of the division militaries have much love from the public anymore.”

  The crew stared at her to see if Bartholomew’s words deescalated her impending mental collapse. Memories of the Northern military brought memories of Ty. They all tried to avoid it daily. Mimir’s madness knew no limits; the lesser god removed Ty Aldon's retention from Bermuda’s heart, but pieces of him existed still in her brain. The two organs struggled to coexist when the woman’s brain recalled Ty Aldon, but her heart made no sense of those memories. It caused her to collapse into an unfortunate state of confusion. It haunted her, how she felt a critical part of her existence but had no context on why it called to her—often, it caused a flustered meltdown. Her brain flooded her body with too many chemicals to handle. It always ended with two or three people holding her down, and required sedation. Bartholomew, and the rest of the crew, wished to avoid it at all costs. A great pain existed, watching a comrade who forgot a huge part of herself struggling to make sense of why a piece of her wasn’t there. Bartholomew’s words seemed to do the trick. Bermuda accepted his explanation and settled back into her seat, much to everyone’s relief.

  When the scholar seemed certain she stabilized, he turned his attention back to Umbriel. “You must harbor a dislike for the divisions as well, after what they did to you. I’m not sure how things were six hundred years ago, but their popularity is suffering. For a long time, I thought they existed to serve their people, that politics required sacrifices. I lived in Northwestern, under Vadim Canmore's authority. It wasn’t until he destroyed the division’s learning institutions to make room for more financially profitable operations that I questioned his motives.”

  Umbriel tilted her head. She observed Bartholomew’s lust for knowledge in the short time she knew him. “Oh,” she whispered. “Is that why you left?”

  “It is one reason,” Bartholomew confirmed as he took a bite from his piece of deer meat. After chewing and swallowing, he looked over at the captain with a smirk. “Northwestern possessed a certain level of intolerance for beings who did not conform to traditional expectations. But Kazuaki Hidataka harbors no prejudices. So long as you can swing a dagger and shoot a gun, he’d take you onboard no matter what else.”

  Kazuaki matched Bartholomew’s grin, thinking back to the day he welcomed the scholar onto the boat. “You do well enough with a weapon, my friend, but your strength rests in your knowledge. I’ve never had a more skilled navigator.” He lifted his glass from across the distance, a silent salute to Bartholomew.

  The scholar lifted his glass as well with a grin. “Thank you, Captain.”

  Umbriel smiled at the pleasant exchange, enamored by her company. Solitude had been good to her, but she delighted in human attendance again. Granite’s dog came out of nowhere and pushed his nose into her hands to lick at the juices from the deer meat that still clung to her fingertips. She laughed and stroked the animal’s filthy fur. “And you, Granite?” she asked, finding canine’s owner across the campfi
re. “How did you come to find refuge with your companions?”

  Granite ripped a chunk of meat off its bone, clearing away the flesh before tossing the remnants to his dog, who abandoned Umbriel and ran off with its prize. He watched as the dog created distance to protect its bone, staring at it as he said, “I’m wanted for killing my brother back in Eastern. Poverty’s high there. Not much food, not much housing. Even in adulthood, families all packed into small homes. I found the beast in a garbage pit about seven years back.” The animal existed as an incredible companion for a loner. It loved unconditionally, something Granite had never been familiar with in his early life. He shrugged. “I took him home. My brother took him for food. I took his life.”

  The crew continued to eat. They knew of Granite’s checkered past and therefore remained unfazed by the appalling nature of his tale. Nicholai and Umbriel appeared stunned, however, and exchanged questioning glances with one another. After a long pause and reflection, the Earth Mother shook her head and sat back. She did not exist to judge the actions of others. “You did what you thought was right,” she said, referencing the earlier conversation she shared with Kazuaki. The woman gazed off in the dog’s direction. “He certainly loves you. I could see why you’d want to spare his life.”

  Granite nodded and continued eating, having never experienced a meal as rich as this one. Everyone seemed to enjoy the feast. “You outdid yourself, Penn,” Elowyn complimented the chef to ease the lull in the conversation before she popped a mushroom into her mouth. “And you, Umbriel. Thank you for the main course.”

  “Penn is, indeed, a talented cook,” Umbriel agreed, smiling at the quiet man. “Where did you gain such skill?”

  Penn looked up from his plate. His discomfort at having all eyes on him showed. “The home,” he muttered, shoveling more food into his mouth to save him from further explanation.