The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  Chapter Nineteen

  Several routes existed that Umbriel could have taken on her way to the post, but Nicholai remained certain his odds of running into her were better if he kept to the main road. He coughed into his arm at an unwelcome burst of coal dust carried on the wind. A stabbing of sand particles accosted his eyes. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he got, but from the protests his body voiced, he figured it wasn’t enough.

  Umbriel’s identifiable silver and lavender strands gave away her position as she stepped out of the post. They somehow caught the sun, even as it struggled to pierce through the clouds. A small gasp escaped her when she turned the corner and saw him. Umbriel knew immediately, by the look on his face, he was not happy.

  It was a rare occurrence for Nicholai to catch Umbriel off guard. The moment was only matched in infrequency by Umbriel catching Nicholai with a less than pleased expression. The two stood for a moment, staring at one another, in their scarcely seen states, until Umbriel ventured the first words.

  “You’re mad,” she said.

  Nicholai glanced around at the patrons who slowed their strolls to observe the Time Father and Earth Mother huddled outside the post. He cleared his throat and gently took her arm, guiding her to a less visible location. “I’m not mad,” he replied, a bit too irritably to sound convincing. “I’m disappointed. Malcolm says you had official documents in your hands—did you send something off under the guise of my approval?”

  “You needed the sleep,” Umbriel interjected, calm but firm in her reply.

  Nicholai sighed, removing his hat to sweep his hand through his hair. “What you did is a capital offense, Umbriel. I know you’re from a different time, but that’s not how things work around here now.”

  Umbriel stood straighter. “I am sorry, Nicholai. But contrary to what society wants to believe, the world hasn’t changed that much.”

  The Time Father turned his head away from her. He tried to collect his countless scattered thoughts and organize them but to no avail.

  “We received a letter from Kazuaki,” she explained, wrapping her arms around her torso as she readjusted which leg held her weight. “Well ... a cloth. He and the crew are alive, but he indicated a need for assistance. I’ve been watching and helping you with the political side of things for almost a year now, Nicholai. I know your habits. You would have sent whatever help Southeastern could spare, bearing in mind that we need to keep plenty of footmen for ...” She paused. Her voice lowered. “ ...any impending deity-related crises.”

  Nicholai fixed his gaze on her, his brows furrowing. “Kazuaki sent word? And you didn’t wake me?”

  Umbriel closed her eyes and reached out to grab Nicholai’s shoulders. When she opened them again, she made sure to find his dispersed focus. “Listen to me, Nicholai. Northwestern burns. I can only surmise it is the work of the gods. Now, I know what horrors weigh down on you. I know you want to save your people from this hell that awaits them. I know part of you went with Kazuaki and the others to Northwestern, dividing your already divided mind.” Her grip squeezed to ensure she had his attention. “But you need to take care of yourself. You are drained. You are weary. I can replenish and replenish you until I have devoured every last speck of energy within myself, but your body still requires sleep. Nourishment. There is simply no way you can save anyone if you cannot even save yourself.”

  He felt the pressure of her fingertips as they buried into his ligaments. It seemed excessive, but she needed to make her point. His heart bled for Northwestern and its chaotic state, but he could not dwell on it. Instead, he cataloged it into the back of his mind with his growing collection of qualms. He needed to center himself. Nicholai inhaled deeply and nodded once. “I know. You’re right.” He rubbed the back of his neck, announcing an even greater concern. “Avigail is gone.”

  “What?” Umbriel’s eyes widened, alarmed, and she looked over his shoulder as if she might somehow find the young woman standing there. “When? She can’t have gotten far, she was there when I left—”

  “She left a note. She didn’t say anything, just that she would eventually return.”

  “Did Malcolm not see her leave? Or have any idea which way she went?” Umbriel’s voice was steady, but Nicholai detected her hidden worry. “I sent him straight over as soon as I left.”

  Nicholai held up a hand to try and calm her. “He didn’t. I know it sounds grim, but it may have been better that she wasn’t there. She was fortunate enough to avoid an unwelcome confrontation with a hired hand of sorts.”

  The horror on Umbriel’s typically serene face only grew at his announcement. That she had only left him alone for such a short time and so many terrors befell him, made guilt nip at her ankles. She knew it was ridiculous; guilt was a useless emotion, incapable of solving anything. She tried to shake it off, but it stuck like an embedded thorn. “Where is the person who attacked you now?” she asked.

  “Malcolm is alerting some footmen to remove him from the house. He’s tranquilized, no threat anymore.”

  “Another assassination attempt?” Umbriel guessed.

  “I can’t say for certain.” Nicholai shrugged a single shoulder. “I think if he meant to kill me, he could have. He uttered something strange before he surrendered his consciousness. A name, I surmise. Ameyar, was it?”

  Umbriel’s face lost some of its color. “The God of the Underworld,” she whispered, sliding her hands off his shoulders to raise her fingers to her lips in thought. “Dimjir said he was among the few lesser gods who wished to exact their revenge. Ameyar must have chosen Southeastern as his territory.”

  “The Underworld ...” Nicholai blinked and rubbed his eyes, exasperated. “I suppose the God of Harmlessness would be asking for too much, wouldn’t it?”

  “You joke, Nicholai, but Ameyar is not to be taken lightly.” Umbriel’s expression shifted, unamused.

  In spite of everything, Nicholai laughed. “What would you have me do, Umbriel? If you don’t laugh ...” He shook his head. The only other option was to curl up into a fetal position and damn his bad luck. “On the positive side, at least things can’t get much worse.”

  Tiny bells chimed as the post office’s door opened and closed. A courier, dressed in his official regalia, started down the cobblestone streets of the main road leading to Nicholai’s homestead. He paused when he caught sight of the Time Father and Earth Mother tucked into the building’s exterior corner. The man arched a brow, finding it unusual the two would hide away from the public in such a manner. He chalked it up to the whispered rumors of the two’s scandalous relationship with one another and cleared his throat. “Uh, excuse me—I ... had hoped to catch up to Miss Umbriel Dasyra before she wandered too far, but ... um ... I see you’re both here, anyway.”

  Nicholai stiffened under the scrutiny of the courier’s gaze and climbed out of the shadows with a forced smile. “Ha, yes, well ... here we are,” he said, stumbling over his words. “What can I do for you, Mr. Nowen?”

  The courier flashed a contrived grin. “Right. I forgot to mention when you dropped off the letter, Miss Dasyra,” he fished into his satchel and handed the document to Nicholai, “I was going to send this back to the Addihein homestead with you. But I see your unexpected presence has ... saved me a trip.”

  Nicholai kept up his smile, perhaps a bit too forcefully, and with the letter pinched between his fingers, gave the courier a salute. “Right. Thank you. Well done, Mr. Nowen. Will that be all?”

  The courier coughed, radiating awkwardness, and nodded. “Y-yes. That will be all, Mr. Addihein. Good day to you, sir.”

  Nicholai watched as the man strode down the street, off to carry on with his deliveries. Umbriel stepped out from the corner, her attention on the sealed letter. “What is it?” she asked, almost too apprehensive to question its contents.

  The Southeastern Time Father broke the wax seal, unfolding the cream-colored parchment into his hands. His eyes darted from left to right as he scanned the contents. The pa
per fell at his side, still clutched in his hand.

  Umbriel took on a worried appearance. It did not take a keen observer to know by the look on Nicholai’s face, that it did not hold good news. She forced herself to ask, “What does it say?”

  A warm breeze brushed up against Nicholai’s skin. He couldn’t look at her. He barely felt the letter in his hand anymore, as a numbness crawled up his fingers and arm. It threatened to consume him in his entirety, but like everything else, he muscled over it, trying to drown the doubt in his surplus of optimism. But this ... this was a difficult one to hold down. “It’s from Eastern,” he said. “Elowyn is missing.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The environment was sterile. It was a coveted quality for a mental hospital. The white walls, with the white floors, with the white trim, the white desks, the white uniforms worn by the staff ... it was enough to send a strange chill up a man’s arms. And it did.

  Edvard Addihein composed himself soon after the short shudder swept through his bones. Unstimulating. That’s what one would call this environment, he decided, as he waited in a hallway outside a patient’s room. Absolutely lacking in anything that might evoke a single feeling whatsoever.

  “This one is probably your best bet, Mr. Addihein,” a well-dressed gentleman said as he approached Edvard from behind. He tapped his finger on the door as he peered into the iron grates that fell over the small window. “She’s one of the few who will talk. The others ... well, over half of them won’t even eat or dress themselves unless they’re forced to do so.”

  “What’s her name?” Edvard asked as he stared at the woman, hunched over in the single, decrepit chair the room held.

  “Uh ... 245, 245 ...” The man flipped through several documents he held in his hands. “Esther Hiddle. Came in about a week ago. Sharpened a point on a metal weather vane she had on her roof and stabbed a mail courier with it. Insists the God of Metal required it.”

  Edvard frowned. Without removing his eyes from her, he asked, “Required it for what?”

  The man shrugged, tucking the papers under his arm. “She didn’t say.”

  The Western Time Father closed his eyes. The woman emitted an aura he did not find particularly welcoming. He did not wish to enter. But whole cities burned. In and out of Western, flames crept through Panagea like a tsunami. The occasional rainstorm silenced some, but it was not long before others burned in their place.

  Though Kazuaki Hidataka took a crew to Northwestern following the events at Panagea’s center, he had yet to hear anything from Vadim.

  Nicholai reported citizens panicking in numbers unheard of. Those who feared the announcement of the gods’ presence wished to flee, but the terror lived everywhere.

  Aggi Normandy had begrudgingly started to quarantine those who passed extensive psychiatric evaluations, in an attempt to keep the sane people safe while he struggled to find a solution to save the corrupt.

  Nordjan prepared his cognizant soldiers for a battle against his own people. A battle he did not wish to enter. Though the cold tactics of Northern seemed questionable to some, Edvard knew Nordjan loved his people, but he didn’t know what to do. He responded with the only thing familiar to him: force.

  Emont of Southwestern hadn’t responded to any letters.

  Elowyn of Eastern was missing.

  His division suffered a similar fate. He needed to get to the root of the problem. He needed to know how to end this madness. And there, sitting in a rotting chair on the other end of an iron wall, was his best bet at doing so.

  “I know it looks inhumane, Mr. Addihein,” the hospital operative frowned as he dug out a key to open the door, “but she’s in shackles for her safety as well as your own.”

  Edvard nodded as the metal cage creaked open. “I understand.”

  “I don’t know how much progress you’ll make, but you’re welcome to ask her whatever you’d like,” he added as if she weren’t there. He closed the door behind Edvard, sealing him inside. “I’ll wait here until you’re done.”

  Muscles tightened at the sound of the door closing behind him. Edvard stared down at the woman, who barely rocked an inch or two, back and forth in her seat. He tried to find compassion. He tried to remind himself she was one of his people.

  Esther looked up at him. Her face couldn’t be used to read her mind. It was too wild, too unpredictable. An otherwise sweet looking woman, neatly dressed, holding tight to a handkerchief that she crumpled and uncrumpled in her hands. Edvard approached, stopping several feet away. His eyes followed the chains that started at her wrists and ended at a metal clasp dug into the wall.

  Her skin bore marks of self-injury. He spotted dried blood underneath her fingernails, to match the clawed out tears on her arms. For a brief moment, he wondered if they tried to use drugs as an effective means of sedating her, but these were professionals, capable psychiatrists of the Western division. Edvard ventured a guess they had tried just about everything.

  It was this knowledge that made him feel the part of a fool for coming. But still, he had to try.

  “Hello, Esther,” he said, his voice seeming loud in the otherwise silent room.

  She smiled. It was a smooth grin. If he hadn’t known she murdered a man with a weather vane, he would have found it pleasant instead of off-putting. “Hello, Time Father,” she replied, ceasing her rocking.

  Edvard cleared his throat. “I understand you are ... a ward of the God of Metal?”

  Her smile broadened. “You understand correctly.”

  The Time Father’s hands slipped behind his back as he loomed over her. He tried not to appear threatening in his stance, but it was difficult, with her chained to her place in the chair beneath him. “I would very much like to know your objective, Esther. Or ... the God of Metal’s objective, if that is who you are acting for.”

  She seemed content by his word choice. “You were right to come with words and not weapons, Time Father. Olnos is unbeatable in the realm of metal and steel.” Esther laughed as if she were privy to a joke Edvard did not understand. “Our objective is to undo the injustice of mistreatment.”

  “Mistreatment?” Edvard arched a brow. It had been a long time since he read up on anything regarding the lesser gods. Over thirty years. He knew that human beings were otherwise safe from their wrath, that the only thing a lesser could do was over-embellish an already anchored thought held by an individual. For Esther to have responded to Olnos’ whispers, she must have shared his thoughts. “Do you feel as if you’ve endured mistreatment of sorts, Miss Hiddle? Before coming to this place, I mean.”

  She lifted her head. He better saw the claw marks around her temples and cheeks, but they were not her sole sign of suffering. Her eyes, sunken and hollow, paired with her pale, wasting skin, indicated malnourishment of sorts. A sickness. “We have all suffered, Time Father. Gods. Humans. Panagea. Men used gods for their gifts and favors, with no actual care for their long-term state. They were abandoned as soon as they ran their course of usefulness. Panagea is much the same. We have sucked it dry. Used it for all it was worth.” She squeezed the handkerchief in her bony fingers. “It’s just as the elites and blue bloods of Panagea use us for physical labor. They leave us to our squalor. It’s only a matter of time before we, too, are forgotten and abandoned when we run our course of usefulness ... like our omnipotent companions before us.”

  Edvard listened, his jaw subconsciously tightening with each additional word she spoke. “We do the best we can by all of Panagea’s people,” he said, though his words lacked conviction. He recognized the societal divide. He’d seen it his entire life.

  “No ...” Esther adopted a coy smile and raised a shaking hand, extending a finger in Edvard’s direction. “Olnos hand-picked you, Time Father. He told me that everyone says those who used the gods and forgotten them have all died out ... that a new generation of people has been born, free from the sins of their ancestors. And yet, here you remain. You’ve buried your sins by playing the part of a fair lead
er to your people. Maybe so much time has passed that you’ve genuinely forgotten your egregious act of injustice. But history never forgets.”

  The Western Time Father’s veins filled with ice. He exhaled sharply, caught off guard by her statement, then swallowed and turned to face the operative standing outside the metal prison. “Leave us be.”

  The man, who had not paid much attention, straightened at the request. “Excuse me? With all due respect, Mr. Addihein, shackles or not, she’s a dangerous—”

  “That’s an order,” Edvard stated, his voice booming off the claustrophobic walls of Esther’s cell.

  A long pause followed. Hesitation lived in the man’s actions. One did not disobey the instructions of a Time Father. “Yes, sir,” he said, obvious in his reluctance to relent. But acting on command, he slowly walked away.

  When Edvard turned his attention back to Esther, she grinned from ear to ear. “You know of what I speak,” she whispered.

  A stillness followed. But soon, Edvard dug his hands into his pockets as his eyes hit the floor. “How could I forget?”

  “See how quick men are to exchange guilt for comfort?” Esther licked her lips and leaned back in her chair. “This is why we follow the gods. They are absent of the same fallacies that follow mankind. They will lead us to something better.”

  “They’re leading you to your deaths,” Edvard interjected, his hands balling to fists safely inside his pockets.

  Esther’s face iced over. “Look deep into the world in which we live, and you will see, in some cases, death is better.”

  He did not want to believe it. He refused. “They’re killing you. Making you kill each other.”