The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  Revi reached forward, lowering a pine needled branch from his field of vision. There, before him, standing in triumph in a clearing decorated with simplistic structures, a stone monument sat. Beyond it was another, and a third.

  Carved to reflect the likenesses of the gods and goddesses they honored, Revi watched as a small congregation of people knelt before the hand-crafted shrines. They held various trinkets in their reaching palms: tobacco leaves, berries, even goblets made of hollowed-out wood and filled with wine. His lips peeled back in disgust. Why were humans in the forest, actively praying to gods?

  Their conversations were too far off for him to understand any of what was said. They seemed happy. Smiles lit their faces as they exchanged their banter in their indigenous clothing, crafted out of what looked like leaves, vines, and bark. How long had they been here? Certainly long enough to create a small society amongst themselves.

  A quick assessment of the property told him there wasn’t much to fear. Simple homes, assembled from nothing more than various contents of the forest, led him to believe their technology was simplistic. He needn’t fear the recourse of guns.

  The only thing he feared was a missed opportunity.

  Revi Houton shuddered at the idea of seeking help from people who fell so far from grace that they felt the need to pray to gods ... but if human eyes ever set themselves on his daughter, he needed to know.

  Pulling himself from the cover of the trees, Revi stepped into the clearing. At once, the people who noticed him bristled at his appearance. Unexpected guests rarely ever emerged from the walls of the forest.

  Revi found all eyes on him in moments. Despite himself, he raised his hands, a universal symbol of coming in peace. “I’m looking for my daughter,” he announced, not caring to beat around any bushes. “I’m wondering if any of you may have seen her.”

  Silence followed his words. They seemed apprehensive, and understandably so. Revi did not present himself with an aura of repose, despite his efforts. A haggard, bearded man, thrusting his way through the thickness of nature’s vegetation, wearing his battle scars on his body as well as his mind, made for a difficult stranger to accept with open arms.

  Moments passed before a woman stood from the crowd of those still kneeling. With disheveled hair, she laid a closed fist over her leaf-covered breasts and inclined her chin. If this man was out on a quest that was anything other than finding those who gave themselves to the gods, a threat existed to her and her people. But his announcement about finding his daughter earned Revi some sympathy. “We haven’t met many beyond those who are already here,” she said, gesturing her other arm out to showcase the people who surrounded her. “But we will help if you mean no harm.”

  Revi ground his jaws. These heathens seemed below him, with their desperate desire to revere the very creatures that destroyed Panagea. But beggars could not be choosers. He would have done nearly anything that might lead to the safe return of his daughter. “I’m not here to hurt anyone, but I’ll defend myself if need be.”

  The woman pressed her finger into her cheek, contemplating. She looked Revi up and down, from the top of his unkempt hair to the bottoms of his worn-out boots. “Come,” she said, after determining he brought no danger. She motioned to the ground before her. “Sit.”

  Revi tensed. Calculating eyes surveyed the environment once more before he convinced himself to step forward. “I prefer to stand,” he muttered, adjusting the pack he wore over his shoulders. “Her name is Avigail Houton. She’s about nineteen, freckled face, hair to about ...” He paused to clear his throat. It had been a long while since he had used his voice for more than a few well-timed curses. Revi swallowed, trying to bring moisture to the desert that was his body. “ ...about here,” he explained, showing where Avigail’s hair would have cut at her shoulders. “Though it might be longer now. It’s been almost a year since I’ve seen her.”

  The woman gave pause, igniting a small hope in Revi until she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I have not seen anybody matching that description.” She motioned to the monuments at her side. “Have you tried praying? The gods could help you find her.”

  Revi followed her gesture with unenthusiastic eyes. The man snorted, hocking a chunk of mucus from his throat before he spit. “No offense, lady, but your gods are the last feckin’ things I’d find myself praying to.”

  She showcased no offense by his statement but did tilt her head curiously. “What makes you say that?”

  Against everything, Revi laughed. These people were delusional. They had to be, to find themselves this far from civilized society. “Are ... are you serious?” His brows rose as he looked between each worshiper in his line of sight. “They’ve murdered countless hundreds of thousands. Manipulated even more than that.” The man’s eyes narrowed as he drew his head back. “Is that what this is? Are you all ...” He lifted a hand, swirling it around his temple. “They fecked with your brains, didn’t they?” His expression flattened. “I knew this was a feckin’ waste of my time. No sane person would be caught roaming around in Northwestern these days.”

  The woman smiled. “No sane person at all?”

  He knew what she implied, but found no amusement in it. “No,” he affirmed, hard in his stance. Revi knew his mission lacked sense. That only a fool would traverse an entire hostile division to find one individual. If she was trying to make him feel the sting of his own words, she failed. “Not a gods-damned one.”

  Her smile remained. “We, too, used to think ill of the gods.” She turned, looking out over the people neighboring her. “They did, indeed, take many lives. Family members. Friends. They took much from us.” She turned back to Revi. “But as members of the working poor, we all had very little to begin with.”

  Revi felt a measured churn of distrust, but he made no moves to back down. “Then why the feck are you all out here, honoring them with this shit?” he growled, gesturing to the intricate stone monuments.

  The woman inhaled, feeling the wonder of fulfilled lungs. “The gods have saved the world in which we stand. They rid Panagea of many lives, yes, as both a punishment for mankind’s folly and to ease the burden to the land and its depleted resources.” Impassioned, the woman’s voice rose with unbridled inflection. “They showed us how poisoned our terrain became. They flooded our minds with the knowledge of Panagea. Its memories. Its pain. The gods destroyed millions of people, but when I say they saved the world, I mean it.”

  “They flooded your minds with something, all right,” Revi muttered, turning a smug cheek to the woman’s speech.

  She saw his fatigue. His frustration. It emanated off him in waves. The woman licked her lips and sighed. “Panagea was just like us,” she explained, once again gesturing to her companions. “Tired. Depleted. Drained of everything, for the sheer profit of the elites. But with the gods’ help, it has healed. They showed us that we, too, can heal. By shedding ourselves of the responsibilities Panagea’s blue bloods expect, we can find fulfilling lives out here, living off the land and our love for each other, as things were intended from the beginning.”

  “You’re delusional.” Revi scowled, his skepticism only growing. He’d seen it before, the last time he set foot in Northwestern. “You’re all feckin’ manipulated. They’ve turned you into exactly what they wanted for themselves: worshipers. I saw it for myself, lady, and it isn’t exclusive to the working poor.” Revi’s eyes darted through the crowd, his frustration mounting. “They did the same damn thing to Vadim Canmore.”

  The woman, unmoving, held fast to her smile. Behind her, a person rose to their feet. Covered in the skins of an animal, the individual stepped forward, coming to stand beside the matriarch of the gatherers. A thick pelt blocked his face, but as soon as he lowered his hood, Revi spied his face.

  Donned head to toe in all-natural elements, the piercing light of the sun bounced off the only unnatural object dangling at his chest. A beard laid claim to his face, and though he appeared entirely different than he had when R
evi last laid eyes on him, he recognized the man immediately.

  “I am sorry,” Vadim admitted, “I do not remember your name ... but I do remember you.” He pointed a finger at Revi, a grin on his face. “Welcome to Bricklemore.”

  Chapter Nine

  It couldn’t be true. It simply could not. It defied everything.

  A lifetime of having others bend themselves to his commands allowed Ganther the ability to slow his legs to a steady walk. He would near his property line soon enough. He rushed for nothing, no matter how much everything he came to know was questioned. While the news that Nicholai Addihein was repossessing his assets in Sescol came as a shock, Ganther found comfort in his thin veil of disbelief.

  Nicholai Addihein couldn’t take his property. There was not a man alive who could take anything from Ganther Odenhardth.

  He never agreed to the terms Nicholai brought to his home. He signed no contracts. The Time Father should have known that Ganther only allowed him to leave the offer on the table as a form of diplomacy.

  Then again, Nicholai Addihein fell further and further away from a diplomatic man each day. It irked Ganther to no end. Where had the pliable, easily manipulated Nicholai Addihein of his early reign gone? Who was this new Nicholai, with hardened principles? This man, whose favor could not be purchased?

  It went against any historical relationship the Odenhardths ever had with division leaders. It was ... decidedly unsettling.

  Ganther heard the clamoring of falling metal even before he rounded the street corner. The towering buildings in Sescol offered him a favor of sorts, by blocking his view. The golden tips of his custom-made shoes touched down on the driveway to his Sescol factory as soon as he walked past the high rise structures. His lips peeled back at the sight before him.

  It was true.

  A horde of men and women coated his property, each performing tasks that involved stripping his factory of its components. Equipment poured out the doors in the arms of hired hands, finding resting places on a cleared piece of earth. Metal was strewn everywhere, having been pulled from the manufacturing plant hours ago. Steam vehicles, loaded up with materials, sat before the building’s doors, waiting to be filled with detached apparatuses before driving away.

  There had to be a hundred laborers that Ganther could see. Gods only knew how many more remained in the factory, unseen. Even in the sea of bodies, he zeroed in on Nicholai Addihein like a beacon in the dark. His damnable hat and suit. Ganther’s nostrils flared. The Southeastern Time Father appeared to be going over blueprints with an unidentified individual. It made the societal elite’s blood boil.

  The sound of Ganther’s footsteps were unable to compete with the sound of his factory’s downfall. Orders were shouted amongst the workers, engines roared, loose sheets of metal slapped together. Ganther felt like he was in a haze as he approached Nicholai. Little existed that ever invoked a feeling such as the one he carried with him. It felt, for a moment, as if his outrage might fully consume him.

  It was a shame Villum did not succeed in his assassination. He would have much preferred Nicholai’s death over his late gate guardian’s. It irked him even more so when the assassin he hired to dispose of Villum prattled on about how the man seemed too disassociated to fear his untimely end.

  Almost as if his mind had been somewhere else entirely. Blank. His assassin told him it was one of the eeriest things he had witnessed in his years of ending lives for money.

  When Ganther closed the distance and stood at arm’s length behind the Time Father, he cleared his throat. He needed to reclaim his dignity. “I do not remember accepting your offer,” he stated, his voice hovering in an eerie calm.

  Nicholai spun, turning away from the engineer. The initial look of surprise on his face shifted to an aloof expectation. “I was wondering when you’d show,” he uttered, reaching into his interior breast pocket to remove a large envelope. “Here is your money. As stated in our prior meeting, it’s more than enough to cover the costs of the building and the property. If you want to keep any of the larger machines or parts that were inside, let me know. I will arrange to have them transported to any of your neighboring factories. If there are any you do not want, you can donate them to the learning institution we’ll be building here.”

  Ganther stared at the envelope, his eyes flicking to Nicholai’s soon after. He made no move to accept it, too put off by the smug look of confidence the Time Father wore on his face. The vindication in his tone made Ganther’s stomach swirl, but he exposed none of his feelings. How could he make this man see that this was not how division leaders were meant to behave around Odenhardths? Ganther stretched out his fingers and curled them evenly into a fist. “You are wasting your time, Mr. Addihein. You can put a suit on a peasant, but that does not make him a diplomat.”

  Nicholai did not lower his arm, still holding the envelope at Ganther’s level. “Clothing can be stripped away, but knowledge is something no man can take.” He made a point of sizing the blue blood up, from the tip of his superfluous hat to the bottoms of his hand-tailored shoes. “No matter how powerful they think they are.”

  Ganther stifled his repugnance at Nicholai’s fearlessness. He only inclined his chin, granting him the ability to stare down at his division leader. “You’ll upset them. Think of all the jobs you’re taking away. I know you think you’re doing them a favor, Mr. Addihein, but they will hate you for depriving them.”

  “Your employees have already been handled,” Nicholai informed, standing taller. “Many chose to accept the jobs I offered them, participating in the construction of the learning institution. Those who chose to find work elsewhere accepted a severance agreement that should keep them afloat until they find new places of employment.”

  Though the news inflated his blood pressure, Ganther raised a steady hand to slick the hairs of his eyebrow into place. “When your institution is built,” he started, a vein throbbing in his neck, “they will be right back to where they started. Jobless. For their treason, they will find no work in Odenhardth facilities.”

  Nicholai’s stern fixation did not fluctuate. “They’ve already been offered enrollment upon the building’s completion. They will find more suitable jobs elsewhere once they have a proper education.” The Time Father turned to gaze upon the people, sighing once before he shifted his focus back to his aggressor. “They are hardworking people, Ganther. I have incredible respect for those who wish to remain in the industrial field, but I will no longer allow a need for unskilled laborers to strip people of the opportunity to become something they wish to be. The circumstances of their class will no longer smother their ability to grow.” His expression softened, and though his arm dipped several inches, he made no move to retract his envelope. “If you talked with them, you’d see they could bring something great to Panagea.”

  “They don’t need to,” Ganther replied, leaning back to create distance between himself and Nicholai’s offer. “My family has brought all the greatness to Panagea that it needs.”

  Nicholai shook his head. He thrust an arm out, pointing to a man who loaded equipment into the back of a steam car. “That man has been on the same machine in your Sescol factory his entire life. Every day, he made the cans that your manufactured foods were stored in. Day in and day out, Ganther. Sixteen hours a day producing tin cans, one right after the other, and sending them down the line. Did you know he has an interest in science? After work, he tinkers, experimenting with different carbon filaments—he thinks he can create a better light source, effectively eliminating the need for candles. And what if he can? His passion is wasted on tin cans.”

  The blue blood’s arms crossed, and his spine remained stiff. “What if he can, indeed? And yet, the world still needs tin cans, Mr. Addihein.”

  Nicholai frowned. He redirected his finger to another person. “And her, she wants to make coal a thing of the past. Cleaner fuels. Less pollution. And him—” The Time Father’s finger flew to the side. “—he wants to craft a more ef
fective means of communication. He believes couriers take too long to deliver letters.”

  Ganther hardened his regard against Nicholai’s rising enthusiasm. “Everyone has dreams, Mr. Addihein.” His tone, even throughout their exchange, lowered into a pool of veiled intimidation. “But some people need to learn how to temper their grand visions. Idealized daydreams can blind a man to how dangerous they can truly be.”

  A disguised threat. Nicholai took a defiant step forward. “If perfected in the right environment, their ideas could benefit the world. And even if they don’t ... at least they’ll feel more secure with themselves. At the very least, it should hinder the gods’ abilities to exaggerate feelings of desperation. I am sorry it had to come to this, Mr. Odenardth. I am. But the money I offered is fair.”

  “This isn’t just about the money, Nicholai.” Ganther’s voice strained as he tried to keep it from becoming a hiss. “This is my family’s legacy you’re destroying. My ancestors built the Odenhardth name up from nothing, and they built Panagea up along with it.”

  Though Nicholai’s expression relaxed, he made no move to grant Ganther the illusion of his retreat. “What your family did is commendable and appreciated. I do not wish to undermine what your ancestors have given us. When we needed jobs, transportation, processed foods, clothing, your family was there with their factories. But times are changing. We need equality now, or these people will continue to be victims. Not just to their class, but to the lesser gods, as well. They can only add to what you’ve brought to Panagea already.” Nicholai’s lips pursed as his jawline hardened. “There’s plenty of room up on that pedestal, Mr. Odenhardth. I suggest you make some room.”

  Ganther’s nose wrinkled. He felt the tension rise in his face and neck. “You have no idea what you’re doing, Nicholai. Their lives are not perfect, but there is no room for ideologies in business if you wish to succeed.”