The Panagea Tales Box Set

by McKenzie Austin

  “Belay that,” Kazuaki muttered, sweeping his hand out. “You already know I’m coming.”

  Bermuda gazed at the crowd, her muscles tense. She dug her fingers into her arms as she stared, biting her lip. The woman said nothing to the others, but she knew she was dying. She felt it in her bones. Umbriel gave her everything she had inside her ... but it was not enough to salvage the damage the quartermaster had done to herself. Soon enough, her actions would catch up with her. She needed to do something worth doing before that happened ... so Umbriel’s sacrifice would not be in vain. Freeing people from potential dictatorship seemed like a good start. Like something Umbriel would want. “I’m in too.”

  Brack smirked, stretching his arms out from his sides. “Well, you can’t leave little ol’ me and Penn by our lonesome!” He laughed, clapping Penn on the back. “You know damn well we’re coming!”

  Pushing Brack away, Penn huffed. “Don’t I get a say?”

  “Piss off, Elmbroke.” Rennington grinned, a hand on his hip. “We know you’re coming.”

  The cook arched a brow, flicking his gaze over to Wulfgang. He looked the Eastern soldier up and down, seemingly unimpressed. With a shrug, he turned away. “I’ll make you something to eat,” he muttered, heading back to the airship.

  The others nodded, following after Penn. A sense of purpose helped to dull the ache of Umbriel’s absence. Something to focus on. Something good. The crew exchanged encouraging words with one another, trailing after Penn’s shadow after bidding Umbriel one final farewell.

  When Kazuaki realized Nicholai was not following, he stopped, glancing over his shoulder. “You coming, Nico?”

  The man blinked, finding the captain’s eye. “Yeah,” he uttered, clearing his throat. “I just ... want to say goodbye to Malcolm. Feed Wulfgang. I’ll catch up.”

  Though he wasn’t entirely convinced it was the right thing to do, Kazuaki nodded and walked away.

  When he was sure the captain was gone, Nicholai approached Umbriel’s tombstone once more. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to remember what it felt like to hold her in his arms. Reaching a hand out, he touched the cold marble. “I’m so sorry, Umbriel ... you were right.” He lifted his eyes to the sky and sighed. “I should have never opened that letter from Ganther ...”

  A sudden presence beside him should have startled the man, but when he turned to see who appeared, his face showed little surprise. Naphine wore a stoic expression, her hands stiff as she held them behind her back. A soft wind blew the goddess’s flowing dress around her ankles. She said nothing.

  Nicholai tensed. He did not wish to—but he recalled the lack of respect Umbriel held for her mother. Differences. They had many. Not unlike Edvard and him, he decided. Differences aside ... everyone deserved to mourn the loss of family. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he finally said, breaking the silence between the two of them.

  Naphine remained quiet. After a quick inhalation, she reached her arm out, resting a tender hand on the tombstone. She recalled her last conversation with her daughter in the woods of Nenada, not far from where she was buried. It was not as pleasant as it should have been. Naphine pinched her lips together, trying to wrap a small amount of tenderness around her rigid despair. “She loved you, you know ...”

  Nicholai looked to Naphine. The expression she wore was a genuine one. “Yes,” he replied, turning to face the tombstone. He traced each engraved letter of her name with his gaze. Loss had a way of clearing the clouds away. The guilt of loving another woman was gone now. But so was she. “Too little, too late, but ...” Nicholai ran his fingers over the smooth marble. “I loved her too.”

  THE CANARY THAT SANG TO THE WORLD

  Book Four of the Panagea Tales

  McKenzie Austin

  The Canary That Sang to the World by McKenzie Austin. Published by KDP.

  www.treethatgrewthroughiron.com

  www.facebook.com/treethatgrewthroughiron

  © 2019 McKenzie Austin

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact McKenzie Austin.

  Edited by Andrea Raymaker and Brian Paone

  Cover by Bukovero Cover Designer

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7329723-3-9

  Chapter One

  Why did people only pray when they needed something? Moreover, why was it always at night? It was as if the evening was strictly reserved for the wicked and the weak.

  It irritated the piss out of Kazuaki.

  Monsters needed to abandon their clichés and start coming out during the day. Or preferably, not at all. Such fantasies were elusive—that he knew—but it sure would save him a lot of headaches.

  The captain gazed around the street corner. It should have been vacant at this hour. His eye shifted to a sliver after the glow from a nearby oil lamp accosted him. For how little it illuminated the street, it did a fine job of blinding him as soon as he transported himself from the airship into Southern territory.

  Looking around, Kazuaki arched a brow. The buildings weren’t immediately recognizable. Though darkness disguised the surroundings, he was certain he had never been in this town before. He had to assume it was somewhere in Southern. It was always somewhere in Bartholomew Gray’s division. Kazuaki’s name was well known here. It spilled out of the lips of every needy citizen who found themselves at the end of an unsavory situation.

  Judging by the panic in the prayer that reverberated through his mind less than a minute ago, he doubted it would be any different tonight.

  Kazuaki shoved his hands into the pockets of his long jacket. He finally spied the man who summoned him. Backed into the corner of a narrow, cobblestoned alley, the citizen wore his horror on his face. That had to be the guy who prayed to him. The captain tilted his head. It was hard to see his expression fully, what with the obscurity of nightfall, and having to look over the shoulders of the aggressor intent on killing the man who had prayed to the new god for help.

  The fearful worshiper caught sight of Kazuaki as he stood in the mouth of the alley. It was easy to pinpoint him; he was the flesh and blood rendition of the statue that the division leader, Bartholomew, had crafted for display in Seacaster. “Thank the gods!” the man breathed, pressing his back harder into the brick wall that cornered him. “You came!”

  With a blade in hand, the assailant quickly spun. Skeptical eyes analyzed Kazuaki from head to toe. The cascading, unkempt hair that only absorbed the blackness around it. The identifiable long jacket, fully equipped with unseen weaponry. Perhaps most distinguishable of all, he spied the onyx-toned patch that sprawled over half of the man’s face.

  It did little to hide Kazuaki’s look of unsullied apathy.

  “Who the feck are you?” the attacker asked, unwilling to believe his own eyes.

  Kazuaki’s gaze flicked to the man’s hand, watching as the fingers curled tighter around the handle of his blade. With a flat expression, he returned his attention to the faintly lit face of his opponent. “Kazuaki Hidata—”

  “—The God of Salvation!” the victim cried, feeling confident enough in Kazuaki’s presence to take a single step forward. “Thank you—thank you for heeding my prayer!”

  A disbelieving brow arched on the aggressor’s face. Yes, he’d heard of the God of Salvation. Not a damned soul in Southern hadn’t. This fool may have looked the part, but he had a hard time believing that gods answered prayers anymore. None had ever come to answer his. “The God of Salvation, huh?” He sent an incredulous glance in Kazuaki’s direction.

  “The title is irrelevant,” Kazuaki muttered, rubbing his temples to stave off his irritation. “You won’t be alive long enough for it to make a difference.”

  Knee deep in a life where he had nothing to lose, the attacker scoffed. “Try your worst,” he growled, digging his feet into the rain-slicked stones beneath him as he struck an offensive pose.

  “Mm.” Th
e captain pinched his eye shut, his jaw tight with disdain. Drawing in a cavernous breath, he blew out his cheeks and took fearless steps forward. When he was only several feet from the mugger, he stopped, locking onto the man’s eyes.

  He stared for five, ten, fifteen seconds.

  Nothing happened.

  The attacker wrinkled his nose. The proximity and intensity of the stare felt off-putting. “What the feck are you doing?”

  Kazuaki waited several seconds longer. Still nothing. He leaned back, cracking his knuckles in frustration. “I don’t know,” he admitted, vexed that he had not yet mastered the ability to manipulate peoples’ minds like the other gods had. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  Taking the god for nothing more than a disillusioned madman, the attacker lunged forward. With an expert thrust, the steel sank between two of Kazuaki’s ribs, touching the lung that sat within.

  The man doubled down by pulling the blade out and driving it into the captain’s body two more times—better to ensure his victory with more strikes, given the height and build of his opponent. When he stepped back to survey the damage his efforts had brought, the satisfied grin he bore went from fully-fledged to strangely horrified.

  Kazuaki stared down at the new wounds with unenthusiastic annoyance. Gods dammit. It was just like old times. Getting stabbed and shot was as irritating now as it had been when he was an earthly immortal.

  He lifted his jacket to inspect the hole, frowning. It was with some luck that they were heading toward Elowyn Saveign’s division. She was the only one who ever knew how to expertly stitch the forsaken thing.

  “You …” The assailant’s word tripped over his tongue as he took a startled step back. It should have killed him. He should be dead. “You really are a god …”

  “Unfortunately so,” Kazuaki muttered, reaching into his pocket and removing a rope to tie his long, black strands back. No sense in getting any blood in his hair. When everything was securely in place, he removed the machete at his side and swung at the aggressor.

  Expert though his swings were, the weapon clanked off the man’s arms with a twang each time. It was as if the target was made of metal, and not soft, feeble flesh.

  Upon the realization that his efforts would not be rewarded, Kazuaki snarled and slid the blade back into its sheath. Every damn time. He kept hoping for that one moment, where something would change. Alas, the gods remained unable to directly take a mortal’s life. Feckin’ free will. Kazuaki looked up and shouted in frustration to the sky, “If god-forged weapons can slay gods, man-made weapons should kill men!”

  The provoker took a second step back. What the feck was this lunatic raving about? Manmade weapons killed men all the time. He knew. He’d taken enough lives to be sure of it. The man’s chest puffed violently as he recovered from the visual of his almost-death. There were so many swings—all so quick, so merciless—but he was alive, with no wounds at all. Was it possible that the machete did no damage?

  As the man stood there, wondering how he had eluded death, Kazuaki patted his trench coat down. Come on, where was it? His fingers sank deeper into his seemingly bottomless pockets. It wasn’t until he felt the firmness of the grenade in his palm that he relaxed.

  Pulling the device from its hiding place, the captain held it up to his ear. A couple of shakes back and forth told him that liquid remained inside. Good. It should still perform well, for however long it was in there.

  Pushing past the stunned attacker to stand before the victim who had prayed to him, Kazuaki planted his feet. “Get behind me.”

  Beads of sweat showcased the man’s nervousness as he wiped at his forehead. Had he prayed to the wrong god? No damage had been done to his mugger. “Wh-why?”

  Kazuaki calmly drew the grenade back. “You want to live, don’t you?”

  Granted enough time to recover from the chaotic surge of emotions bred by his circumstances, the assailant growled. He was in no danger. This man, this ‘god’, couldn’t even wound him with a blade. Some God of Salvation. How were the people of Panagea afraid of these bastards? “I’m getting sick of this,” he snarled, a sliver of uncertain fear still infecting his tone. “Just give me the money. You’ve already proven you can’t hurt me.”

  Kazuaki grimaced. He was right. He couldn’t hurt him. Not directly. Rotating his shoulder, he thought back to the events in Seacaster. If he had learned anything from watching the gods unleash their reign of terror in that Southern town, it was that people could still die from environmental manipulation. Panagea did not play favorites. It didn’t when the natural disasters ravaged the land, and it didn’t when the gods influenced certain elements in their favor. “Here,” he muttered, tossing the grenade. “Catch.”

  Instinct propelled the aggressor to latch his fingers over the object as it fell into his palms. He did not have much time to react before Kazuaki pulled out a blunderbuss and fired into the clay shell.

  The explosion rattled the alley. Shards of stone erupted from the ground, slamming into the surrounding walls. The architecture buckled in places, its weakness disguised by the heavy plumes of smoke that rose into the sky like mourning ghosts.

  A high-pitched squeal pummeled Kazuaki’s eardrums. He used his middle finger to try and rub sensation back into the deafened hole. After glancing down at the dust and debris that coated his long jacket, he swept at it with his hand.

  It took a while for the smoke to clear. Though his hearing had been damaged from the blast, Kazuaki could still make out the muffled sounds of coughing men.

  The victim stood behind the captain, deafened and frightened, but physically unharmed with Kazuaki acting as his shield. With both hands digging into the captain’s coat, his body trembled on the edge of complete terror. He did not believe it was possible to feel any additional fear, but when he saw his attacker, standing unharmed in the alley after the explosion, he felt paralyzed by a new invasion of dread.

  Patting his body furiously, the assailant stared at his unscathed flesh, slack-jawed. “I’m alive!” he announced, though he could not hear his own words. “I’m alive!” He touched his chest, his arms, his legs, just to reassure himself that everything remained. When an insurgence of power gripped him, he thrust a finger toward Kazuaki. “You can’t even kill me with a grenade! Now give me the gods-damned—”

  Thunk.

  Kazuaki cocked his head, staring at the slated tiles that nearly cut the man’s body in half. A fleeting glance toward the building destabilized by the detonation showed him that the structure was still in danger of crumbling. He pushed the man who had prayed to him back, shielding him as more bricks and stones fell over the corpse of the attacker.

  The god waited until the second round of smoke and dust cleared away. A keen eye surveyed the buildings that flanked them. There were no more sounds that indicated any additional decay, though it was hard to tell. Convinced that they were safe for the most part, Kazuaki stepped forward. He kicked several of the bricks off the body, just to be sure the man had met his end.

  Yep.

  “You—you killed him,” the victim gasped, gawking at the severed corpse that bled into the alleyway.

  “I didn’t,” the captain mumbled, giving the corpse a final test punt before he turned back to the victim. “The building did.”

  Take that, Unnamed. If the other gods could find a way around Its ridiculous laws for directly manipulating humans, he could too.

  Prayer feckin’ answered.

  Still reeling from the grenade’s explosion, the horrified man stepped forward. Lamplight caught the dead, deformed body, and he brought a hand over his mouth to hold back his vomit.

  Kazuaki shoved his hands into his pockets and started for the mouth of the alley.

  “W-wait!” The target reached out, barely hearing the sound of his pleas as he nearly tripped over the scattered bricks. “What am I supposed to do with the body?”

  Kazuaki jostled his eardrum some more with his knuckle before he dropped his arm back dow
n to his side. “I’m the God of Salvation,” he replied, heightening the volume of his voice to be sure the man heard him. “Not the God of Corpse Disposal.”

  “Well—wh—” Flustered, and crippled by far too much adrenaline, the man blinked and ran his hands through his hair. “I, I don’t want the footmen to think that I did this!” Murder and desecration of property would not compliment his existence. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Rotating his wrists, Kazuaki cracked his neck from side to side. Stiff joints. How annoying. “You’ve got free will,” he murmured, stretching back his spine. “The possibilities are endless.”

  “Where are you going?” The man stepped forward again, his jaw slack as he tried to process the events of the last few minutes. The mugging; the praying; the appearance of a god; the explosion; the death—it was a lot to process. Too much.

  Kazuaki cocked his head as he looked at the corpse. Yes. Good and dead. He could check that one off the list. He returned his attention to the man who had summoned him and squared his shoulders. “I’ve got far more important places to be.”

  With the quickness of a snuffed-out candle, he left the drab Southern town behind him, and reappeared in the airship. His cabin. His haven. Neutral-toned walls with neutral-toned floors, and nothing within arm’s reach that would beg and plead with him to save its life.

  A shame, that. The room harbored one of the only things whose life he wanted to save.

  Traipsing slowly, so as not to make a sound, Kazuaki crept over to the woman who lay sleeping in his hammock. He knelt beside her, his eye scanning her, to be sure she was all right.

  Slowly brushing the woman’s hair from her cheek, Kazuaki gazed upon her pale face. What he once thought was the gentle rocking of the hammock in the gale winds outside the airship turned out to be shivers running through Bermuda’s lean frame.