The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  “Your reckless behavior almost doomed the people of Southeastern once again.” Umbriel’s words were sharp but honest. “Three hours, Nicholai. Three hours separated all of Southeastern’s people from reliving the same fate you condemned them to last year. You’re lucky you made it back at all.”

  Nicholai grimaced. He wished to offer her some form of comfort but ventured a guess she would not welcome it from him in the heat of the moment. For each fresh injury that her words delivered to his ego, the true salt in the wound was the truth behind her statement. It was a big risk. And it did not pay off. “I know, Umbriel. I apologize. It was ... foolhardy, at best. Honestly, I don’t even know that I would’ve made it back were it not for ...” He paused. Nicholai absentmindedly scratched behind the dog’s ear as he tried to recall the name. “Umbriel ... does the name Epifet mean anything to you?”

  The Earth Mother cocked her head to the side, confused. “Epifet?” Her brows rose as she shrugged a shoulder. “Yes. She’s the Goddess of Fertility.”

  A frown crossed Nicholai’s face. He pegged her for a lesser goddess, in that she roamed the in-between, where a majority of the deities hid when they fell from mankind’s memory. But the Goddess of Fertility? Why in the world would she assist him? “Odd,” he mumbled, patting the dog as its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth.

  Perhaps she was simply one of the more compassionate lessers. Nicholai recalled Dimjir admitting in the forest that not all the gods harbored grudges. He was thankful she appeared. Were it not for her, he likely wouldn’t have come back. It felt too good, being in Lilac’s presence. Though it made him wonder, if his false reality was as alluring as all that, Kazuaki, Bermuda, and Penn must have had their own stories about their faux utopias.

  “Where are the others?” Nicholai asked, wondering what the next plan of action was now that things with the Unnamed failed.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The stillness of Malcolm’s greenhouse was the perfect place for a secluded conversation. When the students left for the day and Malcolm retired to his bed, the humid environment proved to be welcoming. Kazuaki stood, palms on a tabletop lined with several small succulents, as he stared across it to look at Mimir. The lesser god perched himself in a chair, one hand on each of the katars.

  Kazuaki’s stare possessed weight. His fingers dug into the table. “Weapons.”

  Mimir nodded. “Yes.”

  “That you stole.”

  “Yes,” Mimir chuckled, shaking his head as he let out a low whistle. “They are going to be mad.”

  “From the other realm. Forged by lesser gods.”

  “You’re doing very well keeping pace with the circumstances, Captain.”

  Kazuaki wrinkled his nose. His eye fell to the katars Mimir held in his grasp. “I can ... kill ... gods with these?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Mimir said, stroking the carved blades of the katars. “Weapons made by gods to use against gods.”

  Bermuda listened from outside the main door, her back pressed up against the wall as she sat on the ground. The opening was ajar only an inch or two, enough to allow her the luxury of listening in. She kept quiet, not wanting to disturb wherever the conversation headed.

  Kazuaki remained skeptical. Anything that spewed out the mouth of Mimir was likely tainted in half-truths. But even if it was only a partial certainty, it remained a fractional step closer to a solution than they were before. “Fine,” the captain muttered, reaching his hands out to grab the weapons. “Hand them over.”

  “Tut tut, Captain.” Mimir slid the katars back toward himself, a devious grin on his face. “You of all people should know by now how this works.”

  A low growl rumbled in Kazuaki’s throat. He knew what the lesser god implied. A barter. “What do you want?” he murmured.

  “I want us to be friends, Captain.” Mimir smirked. “But even as friends, you must understand why I’d hesitate to give you these.”

  Kazuaki squared his shoulders. “You don’t want me to slaughter you with them.”

  “Precisely.” Mimir traced one of the patterns with his index finger, finishing it to completion before he returned his focus to the captain. “So, that’s the deal. I’ll give you the katars, on the condition that you cannot use them to kill me. But ... you must also keep me safe. As you can imagine,” he paused, snickering, “the lesser gods will be pretty cross with me for taking these.”

  Hesitation followed. A victim of Mimir’s trickery in the past, Kazuaki did not want to rush blindly into any more foolish situations. His gut told him it was a mistake. That he should never partake in a barter with a lesser god again, particularly one as divided and unpredictable as Mimir. He stood up straighter, clasping his hands behind his back, and paced the floor.

  Bermuda heard his boots on the linoleum as he traipsed back and forth. Though she couldn’t see him, she pictured the look on his face. One of torment, she guessed. It was a hell of a decision to make. Trust a lesser god, or remain a victim to them.

  “You’re in a good position, Captain.” Mimir watched him closely as he wandered the small room. “You may be immortal, but you’re still a man. The lesser gods are bound by law not to hurt you. Not without incurring the wrath of the Unnamed, at the very least.” He tapped his nail on the blade of one of the katars, his pupils shrinking to tiny dots. “It’s a golden opportunity that I hope builds a ship even better than the one you lost at sea.” He grinned maniacally. “A friend ship.”

  Kazuaki appeared unamused by the joke. He shook his head, incredulous. With his back to Mimir, he whispered, “What makes you think I’ll trust you on this?”

  The lesser god’s enjoyment melted away. He leaned his elbows on the table and sat forward, his voice lowering. “The world burns, Captain. As word spreads, the lesser gods will further reintegrate themselves with the physical realm. With humans. When they learn of the potential the lessers bring, mortals won’t be able to stop themselves from praying. Men love shortcuts too much. Given time, the gods will be everywhere, crawling like weeds over the whole of Panagea. Unless you stop them.”

  Kazuaki ground his teeth together. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he slowly spun around, facing Mimir.

  The lesser god met his gaze. “I know you don’t trust me, Captain. That’s wise. But in this instance,” Mimir’s words fell to a whisper as his head tilted, “what other choice do you have?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The porch steps of the Addihein household were not the quiet place Revi hoped they would be. Nicholai’s house lived too close to Nenada’s countless other residents. It made sense for the Southeastern Time Father, whose heart seemed capable of holding a limitless supply of human kindness.

  But sentiments like that were lost on Revi Houton.

  The time the crew spent in Southeastern dominated any other length of time he stayed in one place. Second only to when he and Arabella lived together, anyway. They were young when they fell in love. Naïve. It was a time when the innocence of youth clouded the heaviness of life’s realities.

  He remembered the day he met her. Barely into adulthood at nineteen years of age, Revi stumbled upon the woman bathing in a nearby creek. She was a product of the working poor. Luxuries such as bath water were not permitted to everyone in Revi’s home town. It was not uncommon to stumble upon someone washing in the polluted stream waters, but to happen upon a maiden as beautiful as Arabella ... the memory brought a nearly invisible grin to Revi’s lips.

  She shrieked and hurled a rock at him for his obvious staring. But he caught a flicker of amusement in her eyes as she threw it. She was stunning in her own right.

  Young adults were not proper examples of upholding responsibilities. They gave accountability away for the thrill of lustful endeavors. Arabella quickly fell pregnant. She was not yet twenty when she gave birth to Avigail.

  Revi remembered the thrill of being a father. Though each new child born brought a sense of pressure that accompanied the joy. A jack of all trades with no parti
cular skill set, he spent most of his life toiling away in a parts factory while Arabella stayed home to tend the children. She offered to work, to relieve some of the obvious burdens she saw in Revi’s face each night he came home after a fourteen-hour day, but he refused. He did not want the kids to grow up without the full-time love of at least one parent. They deserved all that and more. Unfortunately, love did not pay the rent nor put food on the table.

  Tension between the two grew worse with each passing day. The children grew larger, hungrier, requiring more as one after the other went into the educational system. Though their costs rose, his pay remained the same. Coming home each night, staring into the sunken eyes of loved ones who went without, but made no fuss ... it ate away at him. None of them ever uttered a word of dissatisfaction, but Revi Houton had enough for himself to fill that dismal factory he gave his life to day in and day out.

  He remembered how each of his children looked the day before he left. Their faces were burned into his memory. Even Arabella, who aged gracefully despite the number of children her body housed and nourished. Things between the two of them were not perfect, but he adored her. Loved her. It was the love that made him leave. At least, that’s what he told himself in the beginning. It became too hard, looking at their emaciated faces day after day, knowing he should have done better by them.

  It took quite a few years after he left to realize exactly how foolish his thought process was. It was not love that made him leave at all. It was weakness. It was hatred. Hatred for himself. Hatred that he could not give them everything they deserved. And with Arabella’s growing belly, knowing he would soon add another face to the sea of those he disappointed ... Revi Houton crumbled.

  He left them every coin he had to his name the night he left. It wasn’t much. He took nothing from the kitchen. The only thing he took was his unadulterated disgust with himself, and he carried it with him ever since.

  Revi shook the memories out of his head, returning himself to his physical place on Nicholai’s porch. The town of Nenada seemed to stare back at him, judging. It was not a bad town. Better than most he had experienced in his lifetime. But right now, absent of Avigail, it was no place he wished to be.

  Each person who dared to walk too close to his sitting place earned a dagger in the form of a scowl. They moved along quickly after that. The fierceness of Revi’s animosity seemed to sting even more than a bullet might. Fresh off the memories of his past, he was in no mood to appear approachable to civilians.

  Oncoming footsteps behind him made his ears pulse. Revi heard the door to Nicholai’s homestead open, creaking all the way. The noise irked him. Those hinges should have been oiled long ago. Lapses in the material condition of things would not fly like that if they were still aboard Captain Hidataka’s ship.

  Penn grunted as he eased himself down into a sitting position beside Revi, leaning back onto one of his palms. In his free hand, he held a half-eaten pear, pilfered from the kitchen Nicholai and Umbriel shared. At first, he said nothing, only picking at a stubborn piece of the pear’s skin that wedged itself between his teeth. When he finally freed it with his tongue, he spat it out in front of him, startling a woman who happened to be passing by. She cast him a look of disgust, to which he cynically tipped his beret.

  Revi hunched forward, his elbows on his knees. He adopted the look of an angered statue, carved out of frustration and not much else.

  “So,” Penn started, taking another bite of his pear. With a full mouth, he uttered, “Captain’s pretty keen on testing those katars Mimir stole from the other realm.”

  Revi grumbled something inaudible.

  “I venture a guess it’ll come easy at first,” Penn continued, swallowing the mouthful of food down. “Soon as those bastards realize he’s got a weapon capable of killing them though, it’ll be a feckin’ game of cat and mouse.”

  Revi’s head fell between his legs, but it only lingered there for a moment before he pulled in a deep breath and ran his hands through his salt and peppered hair. “Captain knows I’ll do what I can. Not a day went by spent with that man that I didn’t give him everything I had.”

  “Right.” Penn inspected his pear, and upon realizing he’d eaten most of the flesh from it, he tossed it carelessly onto the cobblestone before him. “Thing is, it’s hard to be of use when your head’s elsewhere, isn’t it? Gonna get yourself feckin’ killed if you’re not paying attention.”

  Revi glared at Penn, clamping his jaw. But the man’s temper faded when he concluded some sense lingered in Penn’s observation. “I just need to know she’s all right. Or where she went,” he muttered, his fingers digging into his palm.

  A brow arched on Penn’s face. He looked unimpressed by Revi’s admission, but Penn always showcased a perpetual appearance of dissatisfaction. He leaned forward, matching the Houton man’s posture. “Let me tell you something, Revi. Avigail sought you out. She had no money, no resources, and yet, she still managed to find you.” He frowned. “The environment she grew up in wasn’t ideal, but it made her smart, and it made her tough. I’m sure wherever she is, she’s fine.”

  The brooding eyes of Revi Houton focused on the pear carcass tossed aside by Penn. He needed something to hone in on that was not the questionable faces of the passersby or his imagination. “I know,” he murmured.

  Penn’s gaze flattened when he realized Revi did not pick up on the entirety of his subtle message. “I’m also sure that if she traversed half of Panagea to find you once ... she’d probably try to do it again.”

  Something in Penn’s tone prodded Revi to sit up a little straighter. He peeled his eyes away from the pear, casting an uncertain look in his comrade’s direction. “What are you saying?”

  An eye roll followed Revi’s inquiry. Penn counted off the sequence of events on his fingers. “I’m saying she knows you went to Northwestern. She knows it was dangerous. She probably got an even better idea of the danger since we left, what with lesser gods running around manipulating people like it’s the end of the feckin’ world or something.” His hard expression softened, but only minutely. “I’m just saying ... if my folks were still alive ... even if they did dump me off in some shithole ... I’d still put my life on the line to make sure they were okay.”

  Revi’s mouth felt dry. The wisdom of Penn’s words burned him. It all seemed so obvious now. “You think she went to Northwestern,” he said, trying to recall all the information he had given her at Panagea’s center.

  He got it. Penn pushed his beret up further on his head with a small nudge from his thumb. “I’m only saying that’s what I would do. And whether I like it or not, your whiny ass daughter and I are cut from the same cloth.”

  Revi’s eyes narrowed to slits and he fought the initial uprising of offense that boiled through his arms. But a slow breath helped him settle. The words about his daughter were unflattering, but he wouldn’t expect any different from Penn Elmbroke. He recognized the man’s confession for what it truly was: a helpful gesture.

  He rose from his spot on the porch steps and looked down at his comrade, who sat just as swaggering and conceited as he always did. Though Revi did not offer him a smile, his words held an honest coating of appreciation. “Thanks, Penn.”

  The man waved his wrist as if it was no big deal. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, getting comfortable once more in his spot on the porch. “Go on, then. Gather your shit. Captain’s going to be pissed you’re leaving, you know.”

  Revi scoffed. It would take him very little time to acquire his belongings. He’d need some supplies from the airship, but experience aboard it left him with the knowledge of where everything was. He could be on the next steam train within an hour.

  Penn was right, though; Kazuaki likely wouldn’t be pleased. Especially with the terrible timing. The captain was out for the blood of the lesser gods, now. Still, Revi knew the immortal would bite his tongue. If the captain’s behavior last year was any indication, when he abandoned an entire uprising to track and secure
a rouge Bermuda, Revi knew he’d understand. Some people just held more precedence than others. And to Revi Houton, his daughter held it all. Even if it took ten years to learn, he would spend the rest of his life holding himself to that.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “You ... want to use me?”

  Kazuaki stared at Nicholai from his chair in the Addihein household. His elbow settled on the Time Father’s desk, with his fingers splayed on the right side of his face to hold it up. He nodded. “Yes.”

  “As bait?” Nicholai asked.

  “Yes.”

  The Southeastern Time Father blinked, sitting back in his chair. He draped his arm over the object’s back and cradled his chin in his hand. “I’m keen on helping, Kazuaki, but I thought, perhaps, you might find a use for me as something more than a piece of meat, placed under a box trap, held up by a stick.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Kazuaki leaned back in his seat. The fragile material creaked under the weight of his frame. “Nobody uses box traps anymore. They’re completely ineffective.”

  The captain’s words were lost on Nicholai. “You know what I mean.”

  Kazuaki stared at Nicholai for a moment, impatiently tapping his finger on the side of his jaw. “They’re after the division leaders, Nico. Vadim was already a victim. We can only surmise the same fate has befallen Emont and—” He paused. It was brief, but Nicholai caught it. Kazuaki cleared his throat. “—and Elowyn. You were attacked once already. We know they’ll try again. Right now, they’re busying themselves manipulating countless thousands of people. None of us stand a chance at getting them to tear themselves away from their reign of terror. But you ... to them, you’re a worthy prize. You’re our best shot at getting one to physically manifest itself.”