Disbelief rose into Bartholomew’s eyes and flooded them. He searched for an appropriate response and shook his head when he felt his words failing him. “You’ll … you’ll need a navigator,” he uttered.
“No.” Kazuaki finished crushing the Chronometer and opened his fingers to allow the pieces to fall to the floor. He wiped the small bits of clinging debris off on his long jacket and straightened his posture. “The only thing I need is for one person in this gods-forsaken crew to touch something other than misery.”
The scholar swallowed, running his tongue over his dried lips. “But, Captain—”
“Bartholomew,” Kazuaki grasped the man’s shoulders and forced him to look him in the eye, “how many legends have we hunted in our time? How many forgotten treasures have we ripped from the real world when others passed them off as nothing more than fantasy?”
Lifting a hand, the man adjusted the glasses that sat upon his nose. “I … I don’t recall, Captain.” His brows furrowed and he shook his head. “Far too many to count.”
“Far too many, indeed,” he replied, spinning Bartholomew around, forcing him to gaze at Kal. “And among all of those rewards,” he whispered, releasing his grip, “happiness was never among them. Not even Mimir could make our fantasies come true. I would sooner rot in one of those bastard’s jars than see you risk throwing yours away.”
Taking several steps forward, Bartholomew locked his gaze with Kal’s. It appeared as if his lover was holding his breath. His eyes bloomed with undeclared hope. Hope that he would stay. Hope that he would not run out into the night and risk his life to destroy the remaining Chronometers. Yet he said nothing. For as much as Kal wanted him to stay, he would never ask for such a thing.
“The others …” Bartholomew started, drawing his hand up toward his heart.
“I’ll let them know you’re staying.”
Glancing over his shoulder, Bartholomew found Kazuaki’s attention. Guilt lived in his expression. He dug his fingers into his trousers to keep them from shaking. “Captain …”
A raised hand silenced the man from speaking further. “That’s an order.”
Kal crept over to Bartholomew, a small smile waiting on his lips. The scholar matched his expression and drew in a deep breath before he turned to face Kazuaki fully. A sound of relief spilled out of him, comingling with his remorse. He raised his hand to his temple in a salute. “Yes, sir.”
Kazuaki nodded. “Good man.” He glanced down and kicked at the remnants of broken gears with his boot, just to be sure it was fully destroyed. Satisfied with the result, the captain twisted and headed for the door.
Bartholomew watched him, his concentration on the god’s back. He could not let him depart after such a brief exchange. Sliding one hand into Kal’s, he held the other out before Kazuaki could completely disappear out the door. “Captain—”
Stopping just outside of the exit, Kazuaki turned. An expression of curiosity appeared.
“I know that a state of godliness is probably not what you had in mind for the rest of your life,” Bartholomew said while rubbing the back of his neck. “Do not leave without knowing that there is no man alive more suited for it than you.”
Kind words. Kazuaki had no earthly clue what to do with them. He wanted nothing to do with the gods, but there was nothing to be gained in saying such things to Bartholomew. It was marginally better than an eternity spent praising Mimir, after all. He cleared his throat and nodded. “I’ll try to remember that.”
“And Captain”—Bartholomew forced a small smile—“I know the importance you face with responding to the invocations of the people. Just remember, while you’re busy answering their prayers, as you have just answered mine, don’t forget to answer your own, as well.”
Silence followed. Kazuaki let the words flow into him, where they rested. After lightly tapping a closed fist once on the door’s frame, he nodded a final time. “Take care of yourself, Bartholomew.”
The two men watched as the god vanished into the open. Kal slid his arm farther into Bartholomew’s, holding tighter than he should have, out of relief that his lover was still there. Feeling like his prayers had been answered too, he breathed a sigh of relief. “He makes a good god,” the ambassador said, staring at the open space Kazuaki had walked through.
“Yes.” Bartholomew nodded in agreement, his gaze fixated on the door. “I hope one day he realizes that too.”
Outside, at the foot of the airship’s ramp, Nicholai dug his heels into the ground. A ceaseless pestering nagged at him, other than Brack. He trusted Kazuaki; he trusted him with his life. But the desecration of the Chronometers bordered too close to an obsession. For the sake of every intention he had employed and failed, Nicholai Addihein needed to see with his own eyes that the object had been destroyed.
“Pardon me, Brack,” he announced, putting pressure into the man’s palms as he pushed him along, “it seems I forgot to give a final word to Bartholomew regarding … a …” He paused, stricken with the curse of being a terrible liar, “a, um … it’s a Time Father thing. Or rather, a former Time Father thing.”
Brack arched a brow, blessed with the ability to smell bullshit from a mile away. “Is that right, mate?”
Nicholai put on his best, most self-assured grin. “I promise you, I’ll only be a minute. You have my word.”
A narrow-eyed gaze scrutinized the man’s admission before it blossomed into one of Brack’s traditional fits of laughter. “Shit, your word’s better than any of ours, Nico!” After a quick punch on the shoulder, Brack shoved him back toward Bartholomew’s estate. “Make it fast though, or Cappy’s likely to give you a harder punch than that.”
Forcing a nervous smile, Nicholai nodded and held up his hands as he backed away. He watched Brack climb the ramp and disappear from his sight. After blowing out a breath, Nicholai spun around.
He just needed to see it. The shattered bits and gears. That extra percentage of certainty that he wouldn’t let mankind down for the second … third … gods, how many times had his good intentions gone awry now? He lost count when he spotted Kazuaki across the distance, exiting Bartholomew’s household.
Nicholai froze in his tracks. He did not wish to insult Kazuaki by implying that he didn’t trust him. Perhaps there was a way to sneak around the god, before—
The former Time Father’s thoughts were cut off. Perplexed, he gazed outward across the distance, looking at his comrade. A shadowed figure reached out from the alleyway and grasped the captain’s arm. The sight of it—it injected a hollowness into his stomach. It could have been any aged, wrinkled hand reaching out to halt Kazuaki’s trek to the airship. Gods knew there were enough people in Southern that vied for his attention. For whatever reason though, the sight of that particular hand … those particular fingers …
It was as if he had felt them before.
When the hood fell from the figure’s withered face, Nicholai’s heart fell with it. Yes. He had felt those fingers before. Some time back, when they were wriggling through the contents of his mind.
“Darjal,” he unwittingly whispered to himself.
Many paces away from Nicholai, Kazuaki turned on his heels. His gaze fell to the hand that grasped him with visible irritation, and he was quick to jerk his arm away. “The feck do you people want now?” he muttered, lifting his focus to turn it on his aggressor. When Kazuaki saw the sunken eye sockets of Darjal Wessex staring back at him, his expression shifted to one of surprise—though it did not abandon its annoyance.
The hunched creature that was once the great leader of the Southern division tried to straighten his posture. Bones snapped, voicing their disapproval at having to support his body’s weight. The only thing that held him steady was his grasp on Kazuaki’s arm. As soon as it had been ripped away, Darjal quaked with unfed weakness. “They … they made you a god,” he breathed, his words sounding as shriveled as the lips that spoke them.
Instinct urged Kazuaki to draw a weapon. Something. Anything. A
machete? Perhaps another grenade? A fast recollection reminded him that regardless of how pathetic Darjal looked, the being before him was still a god. No manmade weapon would end his pitiful existence. A shame he thought, that he hadn’t kept the katar that Mimir had stolen from the realm in between realms. “So they have,” he replied, watching the shuddering figure before him.
“A gruesome fate,” Darjal choked out, tears stinging his haggard eyes. “I … I had once thought that was a fate worth giving anything for … everything for …”
“I’ve no time for your life story.” Kazuaki held his ground, his powerful shadow falling over the forgotten remnants of Darjal Wessex. “I hardly have the time to end your miserable existence, but if you’re here to raise more shit storms for Nico—”
“Please.” Darjal fell to his knees, whether by choice or weakness, Kazuaki could not tell. His knobby fingers clasped together as he held them out before him. “An end … is all I want. The other gods,” he wheezed, his chest expanding and collapsing as if his effort to breathe was monumental, “they will have nothing to do with me. There are no prayers left for me, Hidataka. Those who grew up praying to Darjal Wessex their entire lives … have already forgotten me. My days only know weakness.” The realization showed in the appearance of sheer horror on his emaciated face. “I cannot imagine an existence … more pitiless than this one.”
A brow arched on Kazuaki’s face, lifting above the patch that covered the empty hole where his eye once sat. “You wasted the last of your energy to drag yourself here, beseeching my pity?” The captain huffed. “It seems your body isn’t the only thing that’s gone to ashes.”
Darjal made a strange noise: half squeal and half whimper. “Have mercy, Hidataka. We share a history of contention yes, but … if anyone exists who would take joy in killing a man … a god … would it not be you?”
A nerve pulsed near Kazuaki’s jaw. The announcement struck him more than he thought it would, given the mouth that it had toppled out of. It would be a lie to say he didn’t want to destroy him. Death had followed Kazuaki for longer than he cared to remember and no psychological ramifications followed; but for Darjal to request such a thing … it tainted the act somehow. “I have no weapons from the gods’ realm,” he muttered, staring down at the wasted figure.
“You, of all individuals”—Darjal coughed, stopping to catch his breath before he continued—“should know that you carry the most dangerous weapons of all.” He staggered forward, holding out his bony fingers, twisting them until they looked like claws. “How many lives have you snuffed out with your hands alone?”
Kazuaki scoffed, drawing his shoulders back. His gaze flicked down to his hands, and he shifted his consideration in Darjal’s direction. “I can’t guarantee it will be quick.”
“However it must be,” the withered god pleaded, looking relieved by Kazuaki’s words. “Just end this cruel fate.”
Glancing at his hands once more, Kazuaki flexed his fingers and rotated his wrist. “I would rather have ended you in your prime.”
“Just do it!” Darjal rasped, a tear escaping his eye and sliding down his recessed cheek. “I can’t do this any—”
Garbled gasps ended his conversation as Kazuaki wrapped his hand around Darjal’s throat.
Nicholai watched wide-eyed and horrified, as the captain dug his fingertips into the papery skin around Darjal’s neck. He thought to call out—to stop him—as death was never the answer.
But no words left him.
By the time Kazuaki released Darjal’s limp body, and it collapsed to the floor, Nicholai could feel every violent heartbeat inside his chest. He could do nothing to wipe away the repulsion from his face. A cruel fate had been delivered to Darjal Wessex: the man who wanted to touch immortality. It seemed that even for the being who had relentlessly pursued him across the whole of Panagea, an endless crippled existence proved to be too much for him to bear.
As he stood in the presence of his consciousness, Nicholai realized the same cruel fate awaited his dear friend. When those who knew the captain faded into the afterlife—and they surely would—countless lifetimes of incapacity awaited him. He had known it before; he cautioned Kazuaki on the reality of it only days ago. To see it with his own eyes, crumpled on the cobblestones of Southern, fading to dust at the edges … it made it all too real.
There had to be something he could do, he thought. Something to save Kazuaki’s life.
Chapter Six
Cemetery air had a strange smell to it. The thought made Rennington smirk as he loitered in the ground, his hands in his pockets. It was the scent of yearning. Lost dreams. The fragrance of what-could-have-been's, and mourning, and grief.
It also smelled like home.
The headstones were packed next to one another in much the same fashion the buildings of Panagea used to, before the disasters brought them to the ground. The subtle scent of cluttered headstones reminded Rennington of his brother’s final resting place. Anywhere his little brother rested was home to him as well.
Several hours had passed since he wove through the assortment of various carved stones and monuments and found the one he wanted. Rennington knew the path like the back of his hand. He had embedded every sidestep and twist of the hips into his memory. Every leap over the offerings others had left on their loved ones’ graves. Though many months had separated him from when he last visited Iani’s tomb, not much had changed.
At least not in the way of the cemetery’s layout.
The familiar letters, ‘IANI J. PLATTS’, stared back at him as he sat before the ornamental stone. It took a long time for him to build up the courage to speak. Rennington wasn’t sure how much time had gotten away from him already. He knew he had to make it quick. It was harder than he thought. “Long time no see, little brother.” He grunted as he adjusted his seated position, tucking his feet under the weight of his crossed legs.
Silence was his only reply, as it always was since Iani died. Rennington grinned anyway and leaned back onto his palms. More grass met his touch than there had been previously. It was soft and far more inviting than the cold stones that covered much of Seacaster’s ground. He dug his fingernails into it, caring little for the dirt that collected beneath them. “I’ve missed you,” he continued, his smile broadening. “You undoubtedly missed me more, you clingy sack.”
The shrill tweeting of an overhead bird flooded into his eardrums. Rennington invited a lungful of air in and let it leave him in one long exhale. “Let’s see,” he mused, “what have you missed since I saw you last?” A grim chuckle fell from his mouth. “Gods alive, there’s almost too much to count, isn’t there?”
Sitting upright, Rennington dove back into his last conversation with Iani. Yes, that’s right—he was called away on Bermuda’s revenge mission. The Southern soldier snapped his fingers and pointed to the stone marker. “Wouldn’t you know it? The quartermaster lives!” Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his legs. “She’s a stubborn harpy, so that comes as no surprise. Not quite sure how much longer she’ll be able to … to hold on, though.” The thick wall of joy he first experienced upon entering the cemetery began to crumble at the edges, but the man tried to hold fast to his grin. His effort only paid off to a degree. “I’m sure the only thing keeping her going is the fact that another day here will spare her the headache that is seeing you in the afterlife.”
A statement that would have once been met with laughter and a cynical follow-up was met with only quiet. Rennington hung his head far enough to sweep both of his calloused hands through his unkempt hair. “Speaking of,” he continued, “I hope you didn’t forget about our deal. Surprise, surprise”—the man laughed, holding his hands out in mock fanfare—“yet another deadly situation awaits us. At least the captain is back this time. Less to fear, when that old bastard is around …”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Rennington startled and spun toward the sound of the voice. He stared wide-eyed, having not expected anyone to fo
llow him, much less hear a reply in the land of the dead.
Elowyn smirked, taking the final few steps that separated her from Rennington. “Captain Hidataka doesn’t disband fear, he invites it.”
After the shock in Rennington’s expression subsided, he coerced a nervous grin. “E.P …. didn’t see you there.”
“Captain’s eager to leave,” Elowyn informed him, offering a sympathetic smile as she gazed down at the sitting man. “He told me to come fetch you.”
Already? He knew he had been sitting a while, but how did it feel like he only just arrived? Rennington rolled his lips together and breathed a sigh out through his nostrils. “Makes sense …” He knew as soon as the captain had set foot in Southern, he was keen on leaving it. “I’m …” Pausing, Rennington glanced once more at Iani’s grave, before he tore his gaze away. “I’m coming.”
Elowyn’s brows pulled together. The look of torture on her comrade’s face did little to encourage her in the act of hurrying him along. “No rush.” She patted his shoulder, pushing the consequences for disobeying Kazuaki Hidataka into the far back of her mind. Elowyn could stomach a stern scolding if it came down to that. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?”
“Quiet down,” Rennington chuckled, glancing over his shoulder for dramatic effect. “He’s a god now. He can probably hear you.”
The Panagea Tales Box Set Page 135