The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  Did Mimir feel sorry for the man? Kazuaki analyzed the lesser god in an attempt to scratch the surface of the truth, but his desiccated brain came up short. Whether he pitied Jernal, loved him, or something else ... the only thing the captain settled on was that Mimir hadn’t the heart to tell him the truth. That the lesser god had a heart at all came as a small revelation to the dying man.

  Lightning joined the thunder. It divided the sky in a series of mad lashes: a cat o’ nine tails punishing the clouds. Kazuaki grimaced, hoping the howls of the oncoming tempest would quiet the voices, but they only grew louder. More persistent.

  Raindrops fell into his beard, calm at first, but increasing in intensity. They didn’t appear to bother Mimir. He adjusted his body for every vicious rocking movement the small boat made. Kazuaki tried to grip the boat’s edge but found himself unable to convince his body to perform. The irritated sea threatened to toss each of them from their safety. The storm was growing. It was only a matter of time now.

  “These voices ...” Kazuaki grumbled inaudibly, coughing just enough to threaten the integrity of his failing heart. “Please, tell me they will not follow me into the afterlife.”

  The lackadaisical Mimir snapped his attention to the captain. His golden eyes fell into horizontal slits. “What voices?” he asked, all scraps of humanity abandoning his tone.

  Kazuaki coughed once more. He felt his heart protest with each jostle his chest made. “The voices,” he reiterated as if that would clear everything up. His words trickled out of him in sluggish breaths. “I had just assumed you were somehow responsible for them, as their presence is an absolute nightmare.”

  Mimir leaned forward in his seat. He reached out and grasped the captain’s leg, squeezing as a well-timed wave threatened to buck him from his spot. The lesser god’s lips peeled back on his face, and his attitude grew dark. “Do not listen to them, Captain,” he instructed, his words horrendous. “They will bring no good to you.”

  It was the way he said it. Kazuaki licked a raindrop off his lip, savoring in the short taste of freshwater. It was enough to perk his cells to life for a moment and savor in the strangeness of Mimir’s words, but the opportunity was not meant to last.

  An unexpected wave shoved the boat. Kazuaki dug his nails into the sides as the vessel rode up the wave, teetering on its side. Movement from the corner of his eye caught the captain’s attention. He reached out to stop Jernal’s body from rolling out the boat’s side, but to no avail. Commander and blanket both toppled into the sea.

  Panic rose in Kazuaki’s chest. It was as unforgiving as it was unexpected. Jernal had never earned the captain’s favor, but for the last three-hundred and sixty-five days, the soldier was his last anchor of sanity. The last human being in Kazuaki Hidataka’s world. He hated Jernal. Despised him. But his presence was necessary to maintain lucidity.

  Human companionship, whether enjoyable or not, was as vital as oxygen. As necessary as fresh water. When Jernal fell beneath the ocean, Kazuaki’s stability fell with him. It was the absence of rational thought that made it easier for the captain to abandon the cockboat, and plunge into the waters below.

  He felt his heart objecting. It shouted at him with each stroke of his arms beneath the sea. Though their deaths were inevitable, Kazuaki gripped tightly to each final second. He spotted the soldier’s limp body floating before him. Jernal would not slip so easily into death. He would not abandon Kazuaki to die on a boat with only a shitty lesser god for company. The captain simply wouldn’t allow it.

  Kazuaki seized Jernal’s wrist and pulled him to the surface of the waves. A merciless wave pushed him back under. Never before did the captain struggle as much with the ocean; he had salt water in his veins. But depleted of all that made him alive, Kazuaki found it incredibly difficult to haul Jernal’s body back into the cockboat.

  As fortune favored him and pushed the small vessel within arm’s reach, Kazuaki wrapped his free hand over its edge. A howl of both agony and irritation flew from his throat as he used the last of himself to throw Jernal back into the safety of the boat’s interior. Though water weighed his clothing down, he locked his elbows and pulled himself up too.

  It was one of the last things he’d ever do.

  Kazuaki collapsed into the vessel, water spewing from the corners of his mouth. He tried to look over to survey Jernal’s condition but found himself unable. At least the soldier was present. Whether or not he had already drowned under the waves, Kazuaki had no idea. Still ... even if Jernal was already a corpse ... at least he would not die alone.

  “Your heart is failing,” Mimir said, nonchalant as he loomed over the dying man.

  Kazuaki tried to open his mouth to speak, but found the tightness that claimed his chest rendered him unable to do so. He only breathed. But the breaths became less frequent, and farther between. Was this death? He wanted to clutch his chest, but couldn’t. The voices were still barraging him. They clogged his mind.

  He felt Mimir draw closer beside him. He felt the lesser god wrap forceful fingers around his arm. “I told you not to listen to them, Captain.” His voice became a panicked hiss. His fingers dug in deeper. “Shut them out. It will all be over soon.”

  A sick delight came from the panic in Mimir’s voice. Kazuaki wondered if he was smiling.

  He felt it. The final beat of his heart. A heart that pumped far too many lifetimes’ worth of blood. It could rest now. Darkness fell.

  Blackness surrounded him. The boat was gone. Jernal. The storm. The ocean. Just blackness, and nothing. Nothing, except those damnable voices.

  It was the darkness that originally shrouded Mimir’s presence. Kazuaki remembered seeing him there, in the afterlife. He poked his head through with much dread. The voices grew louder. They shouted. Whispers became screams and blistered him. Kazuaki watched Mimir—with what, he did not know. He didn’t think he had a body to speak of. But he distinctly saw the god’s mouth make shapes, speak words—but over the rise of the voices, he could scarcely understand him.

  “No!” The lesser god tugged on Kazuaki. The captain felt it. Though he had no arms to speak of, it felt as if the creature pulled at his very soul. “I demand you ignore them!” he screamed, pulling with all of his might. “He belongs to me! I own him! He is my friend! Mine! I earned him!”

  Blackness again. Or was it? It was certainly an absence of color. An absence of everything.

  And then, it wasn’t.

  Kazuaki stepped back. His foot touched something hard. Something it hadn’t felt in a long time. An even, unmoving surface. His body—he had one again. It felt as if it still lived on the ocean, though everything around him remained fixated. He was still in the presence of a sea, but it was not comprised of water. Instead, it was a sea of bodies. Thousands of sets of eyes, staring at him, from where he stood on a podium, beside a familiar face.

  “I ... I cannot believe it,” the body beside him breathed.

  Kazuaki's focus snapped toward the sound, recognizing the voice. He no longer felt the sickly ills of depletion. The ravaged feeling of near-death had vanished. It made it that much easier for his eye to pull Bartholomew Gray into focus, but it didn’t make it any easier to believe it was real. “Bartholomew?” Kazuaki uttered, testing the integrity of his voice.

  Tears beaded up into the Southern Time Father’s eyes. They lingered on the surface until the man threw his arms around the captain, squeezing him tightly, to be sure he truly stood there. “Gods alive,” he breathed into the air surrounding them, “is it really you?”

  Kazuaki stood, unmoving. The fevered gasps and cries of the crowd below sounded just like the oppressive voices that haunted him on Mimir’s boat. He tried to look, but Bartholomew’s aggressive embrace held him in place. “I ... believe so,” he murmured, unsure of himself. His eye flitted over to the copper likeness of himself. He frowned disapprovingly. “Have I been gone that long, that you needed to cast my likeness in metal for fear of forgetting what I looked like?”

&nb
sp; The coating of sheer condemnation. The upward inflection of brooding sarcasm. Bartholomew pulled out of their embrace, his eyes shining as he stared at Kazuaki. “My gods,” he whispered, an immovable grin blossoming over his face, “it really is you.”

  Kazuaki clenched his jaw. The continuous roars of approval started to hurt his brain. Everything leading up to this moment had. He craned his neck out to the crowd, wincing at the intensity of their joy. “What is all this?” he wondered out loud, throwing a cautious eye toward his comrade.

  A surprised laugh fell out of Bartholomew’s mouth. He turned toward the crowd, lifting out an arm. “This,” he said, “is your resurrection. These people are here to honor the name of the one who saved Seacaster.” He shifted his focus back toward Kazuaki, flashing a smile that was a strange mixture of joy and apology. “The great Kazuaki Hidataka ... God of Salvation.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “This is your final chance, Mr. Addihein. Hand over your Chronometer, or we will take it by force.”

  The incensed tone in the man’s voice vexed Edvard the most. Did this person forget everything he poured into the Western division since he was nothing more than an eager young boy? Barely a man?

  Edvard knew the sacrifices he’d made. The sacrifice of his wife. The sacrifice of forcing Nicholai into the hands of his grandparents, who were far more fit to raise him. The sacrifice of his own life—the kind all Time Fathers made, to bind themselves to their division, with no ability to leave unless they wished to risk the lives of their citizens. The sleepless nights. Financial concerns. Prosperity. Growth. Treaties. The maintenance of imports and exports, the ulcers that had grown over homelessness and securing the jobs of the working class.

  Edvard wore each of those difficulties like battle scars. Every wrinkle earned, every gray hair, every new ache birthed from permanent muscle tension.

  These people remembered none of that. They only remembered the gods. The destruction and death that they brought. They acted as if Edvard, himself, had invited them into their lives. They condemned him. Who was he, to pray to a goddess?

  They were the enemy. And if Edvard Addihein did not stand with them, no amount of historical successes could exonerate him in the minds of his constituents.

  “What will you do?” Edvard asked, keeping calm despite the number of men who surrounded him. “You can rip it from my hands, but what good will that do you? All of Western will freeze in twenty-four hours’ time unless I voluntarily initiate a replacement.”

  His aggressor’s jaw clenched. “We will bring it to Aggi or Nordjan if need be,” he informed. He knew full well their choices were limited, with Southwestern and Northwestern belonging to the gods, Elowyn of Eastern missing in action, Bartholomew Gray’s treachery of praying to his own God of Salvation, and Nicholai Addihein unlikely to betray his father.

  Edvard closed his eyes. He felt his Chronometer around his neck and instinctively moved his hand over it. “It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” he murmured, closing his fingers around the instrument.

  The invader stepped forward. “You will hand it over, then?”

  The Western Time Father opened his eyes. He found his aggressor, his gaze made of steel. “I have given everything to rule over this division. I have made choices for the betterment of this place and these people that have left me physically and mentally withered. As consequences for those actions, Western is all that I have left. I would sooner die than allow you to take it from me.”

  He didn’t need to say much else. The men grew tired of waiting for a peaceful resolution. They advanced, blunt objects gripped in their hands, and laid their siege down upon the Western Father.

  The numbness Edvard felt after leaving his son at Panagea’s center only granted him a short reprieve from the onslaught. Iron rods, fists, and booted feet landed on all inches of his body. They unleashed the same unforgiving onslaught that they laid upon the footman, dead at the bottom of the stairs.

  Blood vessels burst beneath his skin.

  Redness took over the whites of his eyes.

  Bruises formed at an instant.

  Bones gave way from the pressure.

  Edvard Addihein was not a fighter. Were it that he was, he still stood no chance, greatly outnumbered by men who had loved him just yesterday.

  When the beating was over, when he still clung to the last inch of his life, he felt the weight of their shadows fall over him. They spoke to one another, but his eardrums had filled with too much blood. He understood nothing.

  It was all he could do to focus on the decorated ceiling tiles above him. He heard the garbled word ‘Chronometer’ leave the lips of his assailants, and though he experienced a great weakness, he clasped his fingers around the object even tighter than before.

  Tears invaded his eyes. His legacy broke much like his bones. ‘Epifet ...’ The wetness bubbled up too far and spilled down his cheeks. ‘I am so sorry. Forgive me. Watch over my son.’

  One of his assailants grabbed his arm. They pried his limb to the side, struggling to rip his fingers off the Chronometer.

  “Hurry,” the leader muttered, nervously peering up to the open door. “We haven’t much time to get this to another division leader.”

  Just as the last finger was peeled away from the Chronometer, an eruption of unearthly wind burst through the room. It came with such force that books fell from their shelves. Decorative statues tipped, rolled from their places, and clattered to the floor. Pages, ripped from the spines of the volumes littering the floor, swirled around the chamber, flapping and crinkling.

  The men panicked. Their arms sprawled out at their sides as they prepared their instruments for another attack. It was the greatest disappointment when they realized their preparations would be useless. Their unexpected opponent was no man.

  Epifet appeared in the room, the tips of her wings branching out in a frightening display. Her pupils disappeared. Her eyes unleashed a deathly glow. She stepped forward, her voice like a volcano that poured lava over those who stood.

  “What have you done?” The words echoed with a callous reverberation. They boomed from one wall to the other, piercing through the bodies of Edvard Addihein’s tormentors.

  The men’s hearts jumped into their throats. Some dropped their simple weapons. One turned to run.

  “Begone from this place!” Epifet’s body shook. She rose above the ground, her toes hovering inches above the carpeted floor.

  The men knew what the gods brought. Destruction. Chaos. Melting minds and violent behavior. Those who did not run earlier thought better. The room emptied faster than expected. Epifet thought some would have been paralyzed in their fear. Instead, their fear carried them out the room, down the steps, over the corpse of the footman, and into the streets of Kudgan, where they screamed like madmen.

  The floating papers fell to the floor. The rumbling in the room ceased. Epifet’s eyes returned to their natural, gentle state. She glanced over to Edvard’s body and hurried into a kneeling position beside him. Her expression dropped at what she saw.

  They destroyed him. His fragile human form suffered the hate of those men. Their feelings of betrayal were evident in every deep gash. It reflected in the growing pool of red beneath him. The goddess bowed her head, touching the side of his face. His blood seeped on her palm. “Edvard,” she breathed, running her thumb over his skin. There was no sense in asking him what had happened. From the moment she touched him, she gleaned insight into the moments he had lived before her arrival. She shook her head, unsure of what to say.

  Edvard’s quaking hand lifted from the floor. Still holding fast to his Chronometer, he laid his fist over her fingers that touched his cheek. He swallowed. It tasted of iron. “Epifet ...” He did not intend to summon her. Only to apologize.

  “Please, save your strength,” the goddess whispered, knowing by his condition that speaking brought him anguish. She looked him over, defeated. There was nothing she could do. Imbued with only the mystic ab
ility to place a fetus in a woman’s womb, she could bring him no physical relief. Only final comforts. He would not die alone.

  Liquid bubbled in his lungs when he inhaled. Edvard blinked, trying to clear the red away from his vision, that he might see her one last time. He found himself unable to do so. “I have betrayed you so,” he garbled, sucking in air. “You owe me nothing. But I would ask,” he said, the hand he held against her rattling uncontrollably, “that you do for my son ... what I have failed to.”

  Epifet rolled her lips inward and pinched them together. She lowered her head, resting her forehead against his. “If I do nothing else with my strength,” she started, knowing that with Edvard’s death, she would not have power for long, “I will make sure that your son knows you love him.”

  Her promise seemed to bring him peace. Epifet felt the strength in his arms fade. It fell away from her, landing on the carpet beside him.

  There was no glorious ceremony following a man’s death. Not even one as prestigious as Edvard Addihein. Death was an equal act of departure for all. He died much the same as any other human would. Quietly.

  Epifet held his hand until she was sure he had passed. She did not want to run the risk that he’d feel alone, even for a moment. Her eyes closed, and though she did not know what to say, a prayer came from somewhere inside her.

  The goddess didn’t know if Edvard Addihein believed in the Unnamed. But she knew the Unnamed believed in him. She hoped, with her prayer, his soul found more peace in the afterlife than it did in Panagea.

  Her eyes jumped to the Chronometer. Edvard’s fingers weakened around it. It sat gingerly in his palm as if nestled in its safe space. It broke Epifet’s heart, knowing that the warmth of the object’s home for the last forty years would soon grow cold.