The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  Nicholai watched as Elowyn, Emont, and Edvard said their adieus and parted ways. For a final time, before his comrade made his exit, he looked to Kazuaki. “Please alert me as soon as you are able. I’d like to know what’s going on up there. Umbriel and I will work on appeasing whatever lesser gods we can summon in Southeastern.”

  Kazuaki nodded. He knew Umbriel would keep the Time Father grounded, but he still scrutinized Nicholai with classic precision. “Tread lightly, Nico. Lesser gods are devilish things.” He felt Mimir’s focus burning into the back of his brain just then. The captain ground his teeth. “Trust me. I know all too well. Do you need a ride back?”

  “No,” Nicholai shook his head. “Make haste. We’ll head to the nearest Southeastern town and borrow a steam car to bridge the gap.”

  “Sounds like you have it all figured out.” Kazuaki exchanged glances with the Time Father and Earth Mother as they stood beside Avigail. That was as close to a goodbye as they’d receive from the immortal. He turned his back and joined the others. “Raise the ramp!” he barked. “Onward, to Northwestern!”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Crawling along the Northwestern border proved uneventful at first. The airship soared high above the sprawling cities and villages. Revi kept a watchful eye on the land through a handheld spyglass. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing, until they edged closer to Vadim’s home town of Striburn.

  Granite observed Mimir like a hawk. The lesser god killed time by playing fetch with the behemoth’s dog. While it took several minutes for the beast to warm up to Mimir’s grotesque aura, the mongrel harbored no resentments when the lesser god engaged him in play. It abandoned all former hostilities, chasing after the piece of rope thrown by Mimir time and time again.

  Rennington and Brack swapped stories. The Southern soldier caught Brack up on his latest missions and endeavors. Brack caught Rennington up on how many women he had plowed since the revolution ended. Though he felt apprehensive at first, Rennington fell back into old times. Nostalgia resurfaced in the crew’s presence. It reminded him of better days.

  Jernal sulked in a corner, his back against the exterior cabin walls of the airship. He was never far from Mimir, hoping with each passing second, the demon would address whatever stipulation promised to free him from his debt.

  Black boots took one stair at a time, as Bermuda wandered toward the captain. She looked over her shoulder, ensuring herself of the fact that Mimir remained occupied with Granite’s dog. The quartermaster came up behind Kazuaki and stood. She knew he was aware of her presence, but he kept his hands firm on the wheel.

  “Kazuaki,” she finally spoke against the wind, “are you all right?”

  Her words were flat, but the sentiment behind them burned with worry. Kazuaki’s chest expanded as he tried to inhale the thin oxygen living at their elevation. Not unlike his current state of mind, his lungs remained unsatisfied. “I’ll survive.”

  Mimir’s return roused many mental burdens in the quartermaster. Bermuda followed Kazuaki’s gaze outward, though clouds obscured their vision. “He can’t take you,” she reiterated, mostly to reassure herself, “if you can’t lighten your soul.”

  “Precisely.” Kazuaki’s grip on the wheel increased. “We only need to tolerate him in the meantime, until we figure out how to get rid of him.”

  “I have half a mind to kill Nordjan,” Bermuda muttered, sliding her hands over her arms to protect her exposed skin from the cutting winds. “How is it that feckin’ bastard can damn Panagea, try to slaughter us all, sever Nico’s arm, try to rid you of your soul, and still live to see another day?”

  “Treaties and diplomatic nonsense. Panagea needs him,” Kazuaki grumbled, guiding the airship dutifully forward. “For now.”

  Bermuda fell silent. She allowed the momentary quiet of travel to dissuade her murderous thoughts. A scuffle behind her caused her to turn and view Kal, who tried to recover from a playful slug from Brack. She found herself smirking. “I can’t believe Bartholomew found a lover.”

  “Yes.” Kazuaki reflected on the many nights spent with the scholar in the past. He was always tight-lipped about why he never shared the company of a woman, but the captain did not need a degree in human psychology to understand the nature of one of his most favored crewmen. “It just goes to show anybody can find happiness. Even in this shithole.”

  The woman laughed. Though steeped in misanthropy, Kazuaki’s words reflected the truth. If the fastidious Bartholomew could damn society’s expectations and find his own path to bliss in a sea of opposition, anyone could. The thought made her stomach swirl. She found herself turning toward the captain again. “He must have thought it was worth the risk,” she said. “That happiness is worth ... breaking the rules.”

  Kazuaki paused. Her tone. It spoke to him on more than just an auditory level. He turned, slow to face her. “Sometimes it is,” the captain responded, measured in his reply. He recognized a spark in her. A chance.

  Perhaps logic existed in Bartholomew’s method. The scholar was the most intelligent man Kazuaki knew. He approached each situation with a tactile sense of what generated the best result. For Bartholomew to not only damn the political pressure his title put on him to avoid taking a lover, but to condemn the ramifications of living his truest self in the eyes of a judgmental world ... Kazuaki applauded it.

  It would be easy to cast cemented ideologies aside. Easier now, when he looked at her willing face. Kazuaki knew all along that mortals and immortals had no business with one another in a romantic setting. But the way she looked at him poked countless holes in the integrity of his decision. He couldn’t deny the growth of their lust for one another. He suspected she couldn’t deny it either. To linger on the edge of desire was painful some nights, knowing opportunity slumbered a few cabin doors away.

  But things were much more complicated now that Mimir returned. Whether Kazuaki admitted it or not, a part of him wondered if the lesser god might find a way to complete the bargain he made years ago. To put Bermuda in that situation, where she risked losing someone she loved again ... he couldn’t do it. Not after witnessing what happened last time.

  “And other times,” the captain forced himself to say, “the risk outweighs the reward.”

  Bermuda tilted her head. “Maybe for some.”

  She wrecked him. This woman who once bathed in vulnerability where matters of the heart were concerned. Time transformed her into something less fearful of emotional carnage. Temptation taunted his primal urges, beckoning him to abandon his sense of right and wrong. “Danger waits for men and women who risk too much. Have you no fear left in you, Bermuda?” he found himself asking, despite his conscience pulling hard on the reins.

  The quartermaster slid her feet toward him, inching closer to his body. “Only the fear of living a life without risks,” she said.

  He looked down at her, the wind whipping her hair. The man tried once more to hold on to reason. “We throw ourselves in perilous situations daily.”

  Her shoulder rose into a tiny shrug. “Then what’s one more?”

  She had him. He was an immortal, but he was still a human being. The familiar feeling of covetousness lit up in his veins when she slid close enough that her arm brushed up against his. Her eyes strayed from the clouded horizon when she turned into him.

  Time did more to heal her wounded heart than Kazuaki thought possible. The morphine of passing months eased her trauma, taking pieces of apprehension with it to the grave with each dying week. Her healing heart grew bold. What were once fleeting moments of eye contact, became covetous moments. But her rehabilitated state was fresh and their destinies were sealed, far too varying to converge on a happy ending.

  Those thoughts fell to the wayside as he looked down at her, his pounding heart threatening to tear his ribcage apart. In a crippling moment of weakness, he lifted his hand, intent to slide it up the side of her neck and pull her face toward his, but Revi’s bellowing voice massacred any transitory opportunity for f
orbidden romance.

  “Captain! Smoke on the horizon!”

  Bermuda closed her eyes, silently cursing as she and the captain turned away from one another and took in the sight. Through the mist of the clouds, they strained to see, but wafting up from the city below was a gray, burning haze. Seconds later, the scent of fire dove into their nostrils.

  “Town’s aglow!” Brack shouted, leaning over the airship’s railing with little regard to how high they were. “Feckin’ shit, it looks like the gods-damned mouth of the Underworld opened up down there!”

  “Right,” Kazuaki whispered to himself, trying to shake his carnal feelings away and replace them with more purposeful ones. “Bermuda ...” He paused. He didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to send her waiting body away from his. But the fates had other plans. Plans set in sensibleness he should have obeyed from the start. “Prepare the airship for landing,” he forced himself to say.

  Bermuda glanced at the smoldering wreckage below them. Numerous buildings were engulfed in flames. The carnage spread from one blazing piece of architecture to another. She’d be lying to herself if she said it wasn’t a pressing matter. “Yes, Captain.” She slipped away, sliding down the banisters of the stairs leading to the main deck. “Revi! Scout a safe spot to land! Granite, you’re on propellers! Brack and Penn, ready the wheels!”

  Jernal observed as the crew choreographed a swift landing, working in synchronicity that would solicit jealousy from any mechanized device. Kal came up beside him, his hands in his pockets. “Are you all right, soldier?” he asked, recognizing the uniform as belonging to Northern.

  “Yes,” Jernal snapped, unable to remove his eyes from the fluid movements of each crew member. “Or if I’m not, I will be.”

  Mimir joined the two men, having deserted his game of play with Granite’s dog. Jernal expected to hear some sort of condemning remark spill out of the lesser god’s mouth, but Mimir adopted a quieter demeanor.

  “Come on, quartermaster, don’t count me out!” Rennington’s voice rose above the chaos as he strode over to Bermuda. “It’s been a while, love, but I’m still handy around a ship, you know.”

  Bermuda spun to face him, holding her hair out of her face with her metal hand. “You could help Revi with the landing. Man the steering fin if you must, just be sure we’re far from any chance at catching fire when we land.”

  Rennington nodded and dashed off to assist. Locating safe territory was no easy feat. Much of the ground burned, blackening the sky the closer they soared. Kazuaki decreased the vessel’s altitude, but no opportunities for landing presented themselves. Gliding through the town over a sea of flames, the destruction stretched as far as the eye could see.

  An additional twenty minutes passed before they were able to spy an opening. When the wheels retracted from the ship’s belly and touched the ground, a cataclysmic collection of ash leaped from the earth. The vessel lurched forward, coming to a rough halt in front of a dilapidated factory. Only bones were left of the building’s original design, the rest cremated by flames long burnt out.

  Bermuda did not wait for the ramp to be lowered. She hoisted her body over the airship’s edge, landing in a crouched position below. The quartermaster frowned as she rose to stand, looking down at the thick layer of soot covering the palm of her hand. Something soft lived beneath her touch. She glanced down. They were tainted with debris, but she spied flowers. Thousands of them.

  A sea of once red anemone flowers stretched out as far as she could see. The orange glow of embers still collected in parts of the gravel, but the fire that devoured this section of the city had crawled onward long ago. Nothing remained for it to feed on.

  The crew was quick to join the woman’s side, once the ramp dropped into place. One by one, they filed into the ravaged streets of Vadim’s home town of Striburn. Granite’s dog sniffed at what was once a human body. The canine sneezed, blowing particles of debris into the air.

  “This is insane,” Jernal muttered, his lungs writhing under the smell of burned flesh and melted metal. In every direction, more destruction waited to be viewed. Nothing but crisp darkness and absence of life. The only signs of movement were on the route they came from, and they only stemmed from the wild, towering flames. The picture before all of them was painted by the hands of a fire that had burned for days. “How could this have happened?” he asked, turning to Mimir. “How could no one have known?”

  The lesser god stared ahead, stoic, and said nothing.

  While the crew had been conditioned over time to remain nonreactive to such sights, Kal had a harder time reigning in his revulsion. “We need to alert the others,” he stated, clearing his throat to erase his fear, “have them send as many reinforcements as they can to search for survivors.”

  Kazuaki glanced at the ambassador. “We’ll send word. But not before we find Vadim. This is his home town, correct? Striburn?” The name seemed ironic now, given the town’s burnt state. "If he’s dead, we’ll need to find his Chronometer before time stops and we’re all stuck here.”

  Kal’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t considered the possibility. He surveyed the area, trying to recall the political knowledge he possessed regarding the existing division leaders. He knew much of the cities where they all made their homes, but the fire damaged a plentiful portion of the geography he had familiarized himself with. After several moments, his voice grew dim. “Of course. The only issue now, Captain, is the location of Vadim’s property.”

  A scoff fell from Kazuaki’s lips as he stole a glimpse of Granite and Revi to be sure they brought the supply bags with them. “Do elaborate, Mr. Rovanas.”

  “The issue, Captain,” Kal started, lifting his finger to point to a tall, blackened building in the distance. Absent of windows, with exposed beams jutting out the sides of crumbling walls, it seemed a miracle the structure still stood, “ ... is that is Vadim’s property.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Impatient hands twisted the metal door handle and threw it open. Nicholai stared down at the glaringly empty space on his stoop. The look on his face gave away his dissatisfaction that no news arrived yet from his companions in Northwestern. He pushed his back against the open door’s edge and closed his eyes, leaning his head back until it, too, rested against the frame.

  Umbriel poked her head out from around the kitchen wall. She studied Nicholai, searching her mind for comforting words. The Earth Mother stepped out from behind the partition, holding a dish in her hand that she had been cleaning. “It’s only been a few days, Nicholai. Even if Kazuaki mailed a letter immediately upon reaching Northwestern, there’s no way a courier could have delivered it so quickly.”

  Nicholai’s eyes shot open, unaware of Umbriel’s proximity. He placed a hand over his chest to steady his startled heart and forced a smile to appear. “Umbriel ... I didn’t see you there,” he laughed, the sound absent of any authentic humor. “Yes. I suppose you’re right. I’m sure he’ll send word soon enough.”

  The Earth Mother’s expression faded into worry. Though she still located the minuscule shine of Nicholai’s unhindered compassion, his eyes were tainted by patches of darkness from sleepless nights. He tried to maintain his standard political appearance, but his clothing remained wrinkled; his goggles went without cleaning for days, accruing a thick layer of coal dust; and his boots went unpolished. The Time Father had even forgone the act of shaving, building up a fine coating of stubble across his constantly tensed jaw.

  Nicholai saw the apprehension inside her. Guilt spilled over, knowing he was the cause of it. With a more sincere grin, he stepped back inside the building and closed the door behind him. “I’m sorry, Umbriel. I hope my attitude as of late hasn’t inconvenienced you. I’m just ... I need to know if they’re all right. It was a lot easier last year, you know, being in their presence rather than bound to my division.”

  “Easier is a funny word for it,” Umbriel replied with a soft smile. “As I recall, when you were with Kazuaki, you chastised yoursel
f for not being in Southeastern. Now, here you are, chastising yourself for not being with Kazuaki. It seems there’s no winning for you, Nicholai.”

  He returned her smile. It held all of him in it this time, rather than manufactured contentment. “I know what you’re trying to say,” he said. “I’ll be a bit more forgiving to myself in the future.”

  She didn’t believe him. Not for a moment. Nicholai cared too much about what was best for everyone else and thought he could be the one to bring them the happiness they chased. Despite the pitfalls of the past, he still failed to see that such a utopia was an impossibility. But it was his supreme idealism that Umbriel admired most, despite how impractical it was. “Just try to relax if you can,” she suggested. “Perhaps you can distract yourself by tying up any loose administrative ends before we summon the lesser gods tonight.”

  Nicholai nodded, clasping his hands behind his back as he paced the room. The quarters were tight; he did not feel the need to dwell inside embellished residences, as his fellow Time Fathers did. Several strides brought him up against another wall, where he turned and paced in the opposite direction. “I suppose I could answer some of the funding requests,” he decided, after mulling over the list of things he needed to do in his head.

  “That’s the spirit.” Umbriel gestured to the desk where Nicholai often sat to conduct his business. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

  Avigail entered the room with a yawn, her arms stretched up over her head. Her wild hair, having skipped a good brushing for several months, flared out at the sides of her head as she glanced from Nicholai to Umbriel with a grateful smile. “Good morning,” she said to the pair, a self-conscious hand over her mouth to disguise her morning breath.

  Umbriel smiled. “A good morning to you as well, Avigail.”

  Nicholai grabbed the brim of his hat and issued her a small nod and smile as he pulled his chair out and slid onto the base.

  Though he applied minimal effort and said nothing, his half-grin alone made her blush. Avigail placed a hand on her stomach to steady her rising nerves. “Are ... are you working on something important?” she asked, peering over his shoulder as he gripped a pen and dipped it in ink.