The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  The Chronometer put her in mind of Western’s dilemma. In less than twenty-four hours, the entire division would still. She needed to get this to another Time Father. She needed to get it to Nicholai Addihein.

  Reaching out, Epifet touched the Chronometer. As soon as the tip of her finger made contact with the device, she gasped. Electricity coursed through her, a painful sensation that made her draw her hand back.

  Of course, she thought. The gods had given the gift of time to the people countless years ago. An act of utmost trust and respect, when relations between men and gods were as bountiful as the forests.

  They were unable to take it back.

  The goddess frowned at the realization. She could not bring the Chronometer to Nicholai. She had to bring Nicholai to the Chronometer.

  Epifet stood to her feet. Given the final, heated discussion shared between Edvard and his son, she’d hoped he would listen. Perhaps most importantly, she hoped he wouldn’t destroy himself over it; knowing that, of all the last words Nicholai had said to his father, ‘You’re dead to me’ remained among them.

  “Rest easy, Edvard.” Epifet bowed to him once more and reached down to lower his eyelids to a close. With a deep breath, she wrapped her wings around herself and vanished from Edvard’s tomb.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Something stopped him from making a straight line back home. Nicholai sat in the steam car he had utilized to meet his father at Panagea’s center, clutching the wheel as he stared out the window. At least five hours of travel remained ahead of him, yet he could not force himself to drive it.

  Behind him, an ugly realization, and an even worse conversation sat. Nicholai’s last encounter with Edvard Addihein, in which he had learned about the unpleasant circumstances of his past.

  Before him, a future with too many uncertainties for him to process at the moment. A long drive remained, toward a conversation with a woman who he was terrified to love. Pieces of him came to life in her presence. Pieces of him he thought had died with Lilac Finn. But each time Nicholai tried to embrace the idea of a new life with Umbriel Dasyra, he saw Lilac’s face. The guilt dragged the hope away, leaving only a painful memory in its wake.

  The Time Father leaned forward, resting his head on the wheel. He stared down at his knees. Paralyzed from both going back and moving forward, he sat in his vehicle. He needed to process everything that had happened with Edvard, he decided. When he found some form of closure there, he could carry on.

  But how much time did it take to come to terms with the fact that your father poisoned your mother?

  He closed his eyes. It was getting dark. He didn’t have to move now. He could take his time. Lamplighters lived throughout the small towns and cities of the Southeastern division. One way or another, regardless of how much time passed, he would find his way home.

  “I finally found you.”

  Nicholai’s eyes shot open. He threw his gaze upward, out the window of the vehicle. He was certain whoever owned the voice that just spoke stood near him. It was so clear. His eyes narrowed when he saw no body. Relaxing more into his seat, movement fell into his peripheral vision. He spun. In the seat beside him, Epifet sat, wearing a look of shattered sorrow on her perfect face.

  Nicholai found his fingers digging harder into the wheel. His jaw stiffened. Anger was not in his nature, but he found himself turning away. “I know my behavior was boorish at the center, Epifet. I am grateful for the kindness you showed me at the realm in between. I am no fool—I know your interference there saved my life.” Nicholai frowned. He had talked himself into granting her his gratitude, in the form of his attention. When he turned toward her, he steeled himself. “But I meant what I said to Edvard. Do not try to convince me to go back.”

  “Nicholai ...” Her words came out layered in varying depths of sadness. She reached out and gently touched his arm. “I know your mind is racing with a thousand and one trials at the moment ... and it pains me that I must add to them ...”

  He glanced at her hand. His brain absorbed her words. By the look of her, Nicholai knew an unpleasantness followed. What was one more to add to the mountain? Angry as he was with her for her involvement with Edvard, he still owed the goddess his appreciation for what she did for his mother. For what she did for him. The gentleman in him simply wouldn’t allow his feelings of betrayal to smother his common decency. “Just tell me, Epifet. What can I do for you?” He swept as much of the defeat from his tone as he was able, but his confidence still came up short.

  Epifet composed herself. She drew her shoulders back and sighed. “Nicholai. Edvard is dead.”

  The world stopped.

  He was no stranger to the sensation.

  Nicholai felt his legs go numb. Confusion clashed with bitterness at Epifet’s confession. He wanted to approach it with callousness. A ‘serves him right’ attitude. But cold-heartedness was not who Nicholai Addihein was. Not even when he tried. “ ...Come again?” he asked, though he heard her with great clarity. Perhaps the inquiry would buy him some time to accept what it was that she had said.

  The goddess parted her lips, hesitating. “His ... people destroyed him,” she declared, shifting in her seat. “Upon discovering that he prayed to me, their anger bested them. For once, it was not the gods who drained men of their senses. They did that all on their own.”

  Nicholai looked away. He swept his hands over his face, pressing his fingers into the sockets of his eyes. Holding that position, he mumbled into his palms, “Did he suffer?”

  Reflection followed his question. Epifet pressed her back into her seat and stared straight ahead. “I believe he suffered far more from the pain he caused you and Enita ... than he ever would have at the hands of anybody else.”

  The Southeastern Time Father slid his hands down his face. He inhaled a slow breath through his nostrils, trying to corral his wild thoughts. There was no time to wallow in whatever it was he felt. Anger? Satisfaction? Heartbreak? Pity? The opportunity to mourn as a son who lost his father slipped to the backburner. More critical needs sat at the forefront. “Western is in danger ...”

  “Indeed it is,” Epifet agreed, drawing into herself. “It took me some time to find you again, I’m sorry to say. Hours passed, retracing your path after I returned to Western. I had only hoped you took to return to your hometown ...” Her expression slipped into one of commiseration. “Western will be still in less than ten hours.”

  Ten hours. It would take him longer than that just to reach Kudgan. He instructed the vehicle to move forward and jerked the wheel to turn it around. He started back the way he came.

  Epifet bounced up and down in the seat beside him, as the steam car rolled over uneven terrain. “You must know that we’ll never make it in time. Not before Western’s time stops.”

  “I know.” Nicholai drowned out the protesting squeals the vehicle made from his thoughts. “But we cannot leave his Chronometer. With his own people against him, we cannot even assume his body will be found in time for someone else to transport it past Western’s borders.” His line of sight fixated on the road, the only thing that kept the intensity of all that weighed on him at bay. “Do you know where his Chronometer is?”

  “In his hands,” Epifet informed, pushing her flowing hair aside. “I do not know that anyone will be brave enough to retrieve it. In my impetuousness, I frightened them all from the room where they killed him. If word gets out that his home has been invaded by a goddess, I doubt any mortal in Western will have the gallantry to enter.”

  Nicholai said nothing. It didn’t matter. There was nothing to say. The task fell to him. Only a Time Father could walk through the stilled lands of a division frozen in time.

  The car rolled onward toward Western. Toward the town of Kudgan. Nicholai had no time to waste. As soon as time stopped in Western, the vehicle would be useless. He needed to get as close as he could to his father’s home before that happened.

  “What will you do?” Epifet asked quietly. “Surely, it will t
ake you longer than twenty-four hours to return to find a replacement and return to Southeastern. You risk stilling your land, as well.”

  The man continued driving. At first, he said nothing. Words that Umbriel had spoken to him long ago filtered through his mind. Nicholai turned a corner, jostling down the main road. “I have a long time to think between now and then, Epifet ...” Light from the street lamps swept over the car’s hood. Homes and buildings blurred past their windows as he accelerated as fast as the vehicle allowed. “But I don’t believe I intend to find a replacement ...”

  Chapter Thirty

  It was surprising how little things had changed in the mountains of Montezu. Given how different Panagea had become in the two years since Brack Joney met Nicholai Addihein, the man thought more shifts would have occurred in his old home. Far more time had passed since he last stepped foot here, after all.

  Many of the monks had gathered for meditation deep within the mountain. The reverberations their voices achieved, when coupled with the hollow spaces, made their spirits fly. Brack remembered the feeling. Like a strange tingle that started on the surface of one’s neck, until it slipped in through the muscle tissue and into the bone.

  It was a good feeling. He enjoyed it. The man wouldn’t go so far as to say he missed it, however. The monks of Montezu found their happiness here. For that, he was grateful. But their happiness differed far from his version.

  In the battle of nature versus nurture, nature won.

  Brack picked small pebbles up off the floor where he sat, tossing them into a narrow cavern across from him. He enjoyed the little echoes the bouncing stones made. He recalled doing the same thing as a boy. A teenager. A young man.

  The other crew members did not adjust well to life in the mountain. It was a difficult existence. Physical comforts were abandoned long ago.

  The monks did not sleep in cushioned beds, but rather on the rocky ground, in its natural state. They barely ate, living off small pieces of edible mosses and various cavern-dwelling mushrooms; the only things that survived the polluted atmosphere of old Panagea. It was rare that they participated in light-hearted conversations. Their focus was only enlightenment. Total abandonment of every physical luxury in hopes of heightening their minds.

  Brack didn’t blame the crew for their unwillingness to enter into the lifestyle with open arms. Even the smallest of amenities, such as light, was different from the norm. Illumination only came in the form of fire. It took the eyes a while to acclimate. And a while they needed, indeed.

  Bermuda’s internal wounds were slow to heal. A part of Brack suspected they might not restore at all. He visited her in spurts, to keep her spirits up, but she always seemed somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

  Penn had caved under the pressure of coexisting with others and opted to stay in the airship. He was better off there, Brack thought. As strong as Penn’s loyalty ran where the crew was concerned, there was no love lost on other living people. The last thing Brack needed was for Penn to pick a fight with a pacifist monk, as entertaining as that might have been.

  Granite had held up better than Brack expected. Fresh off the death of the beast, he still operated much as he always did. There was no task Brack could ask of him that he would not perform. But the more time that ticked by in the mountains, the more flickers of restlessness the Rabbit spied in the behemoth’s actions.

  Rennington tried his best to appear durable. The Southern soldier hid well behind his illusion of prosperity, but Brack saw through him. He’d catch Rennington pacing at times, his hands behind his back. Brack knew that he missed his brother. Or, rather, the comfort of his grave. He missed his duty to their homeland. It had been embedded in Rennington since he was a boy. While the Platts brother dedicated some ten years of his life to Kazuaki Hidataka and the crew—he dedicated his entire life to his division.

  Everyone was wearing thin.

  “Ah, what I’d give for some of your classic leadership now, Cappy.” Brack threw his last available pebble before he settled his back against the mountain’s cold wall. “Gods know we could use it.”

  “Who is this Cappy you speak of?”

  Brack arched a brow, turning toward the sound of Meera’s voice.

  She stepped out of the shadows, her hands folded in front of her. When she neared, she dropped gracefully to her knees beside him. “I can hear the respect in your voice when you speak of this person. He or she must be very important to you.”

  The man smirked when she found a spot near him. He searched the ground for additional pebbles but found none. “Yeah, I can honestly say he was a great feckin’ man. A legend, you know.” He extended his arm out before him as if he spoke of glorious things. “The great Captain Kazuaki Hidataka.” His arm fell back into his lap. “Never thought I’d live to see the day he didn’t.”

  Meera wrinkled her forehead as she listened. She chose to ignore his vulgar language, instead focusing on the critical content of the story. “Death comes to all of us. It is something from which no man can run.”

  Brack laughed, resting the back of his head against the cave wall. “Yeah, well ... you didn’t know the captain.”

  Falling silent, Meera glanced away. “I did not,” she said, her fingers tightening around the cloth at her knees. “Apparently, I did not know you very well, either. I thought I did, a long time ago.”

  The man glimpsed her from the corners of his eyes. “Aye? How do you mean?”

  “I ...” She started, stopping herself. For once, the composed monk looked the part of an uncertain child. “You were among the elite, Brack. The few who had the unnatural ability to clear their entire mind. You could have touched true greatness. Achieved enlightenment, and yet ... you left it all behind.” She turned to face him. “I know I am supposed to leave useless thoughts to the wayside, but ... I still find myself wondering why. Perhaps that is why I have not progressed as much as the others.”

  Brack blinked, absorbing the entirety of her admission. A slow grin crept onto his face, and he offered a nonchalant shrug. “I don’t know. One day, everything just ... made sense.”

  Meera’s lips tightened into a fine line. “Could you explain it to me?”

  “Sure,” Brack said, bending his legs at the knees to allow himself the ability to rest his forearms on them. “It’s just ... we spent our entire lives chasing enlightenment, you know? Every meditation. Every chant. Every action. It was all to find that greater purpose of living.” The man rolled his head toward her, finding her face in the flickering light of the torches around them. “My mind traveled to a lot of unworldly planes with our spirit mushrooms, Meera. Places my body could only ever dream of. I remember a feeling of irrevocable happiness in each one of them, though no two were the same. Then one day ...” He shrugged. “It just clicked. The joy I felt in those places didn’t come from achieving a higher consciousness or discovering the meaning of life, or anything like that. I just ... felt good when I left the mountain. As if I left a prison cell. I was free.”

  Though his confession afforded her a simple understanding, Meera still found herself unable to grasp the full gravity of Brack’s explanation. “Freedom to engage in ... life’s physical pleasures?” she asked.

  The man laughed, nodding. “Well ... yeah. The monks of Montezu spend their whole lives teaching us all about life’s physical pleasures so that we could better understand them, to make it easier for us to avoid them. But ...” Brack shook his head, still chuckling to himself. “What good is a life absent of pleasure? I know it sounds simple, but ... that’s because it is.”

  “But,” Meera interjected, scrunching her brows over her face, “physical pleasure lasts only seconds. Enlightenment is a pleasure that lasts lifetimes.”

  Brack turned his palms upward toward the ceiling and offered Meera a charming grin. “Sometimes, seconds are all we have. I decided I’d rather spend whatever seconds I had actively being happy than trying to figure out what happiness meant.”

  Meera fell silent
. Contemplative. She fixated her eyes on a stalagmite several yards away. “Would you describe it to me?” she asked, her voice quiet. “Physical pleasure? I suspect your version differs from the description the other monks have provided me.”

  It took all of his willpower to hold back the torrent of lewd comments that flooded his mind. Instead, Brack grinned, reflecting. “It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. There’s greatness in every little thing. The way certain foods melt over your tongue before you swallow them. Your body and mind melt with it if it tastes good enough. The way your stomach hurts after you’ve laughed for a solid twenty minutes—it’s the best pain I’ve ever felt in my life. Or the touch of a woman, my gods, Meera, sex—” He stopped himself, catching the growing look of dread that appeared on her face. Brack chuckled, hitching his shoulder. “Sorry, love. I could go on and on. I don’t think it’s something that can be explained, though. Just experienced.”

  The monk gave nothing away. She rolled her head toward him, her gaze searching his. “Can I ask ... are you happy?”

  Brack smirked. “Couldn’t be happier, love.”

  Meera matched a small portion of his smile, but it fell away in moments. “Your friend is dying.”

  In the flickering light of the torches that mounted into the stone walls, Brack’s grin dimmed too. “Well ... I suppose I could be a little happier then.” He broke eye contact with Meera, gazing beyond her instead. “But, I guessed as much already.”

  “Were it so that I could do more,” Meera said, clasping her arms tighter around her body, “I would.”

  Brack cleared his throat and reached over to pat her shoulder. He tried to smile once more. “Yeah, mate. I know you would.” After several reassuring pats, he let his arm drop. “How much time do you think she has left?”

  Meera mulled over his question, rolling it around in her mind. “I would find it a great surprise if her body lasted more than a week. Though she has not put any stimulants in her body as of late, the poison remains. No detoxification process would cleanse her of her poor decisions, Brack.”