The End: An Official Minecraft Novel

by Catherynne M. Valente

  The ender dragon swooped around and around. Its huge dark wings flapped up and down, up and down. Slowly, effortlessly, as though flying was ever so much easier than sitting on the ground like a lump. Its massive, blocky head moved side to side like a shark’s, always seeking something, something it never found. Mo couldn’t imagine what a beast like that could want. What could it lack that it could not simply take?

  Every once in a while, the dragon crouched on the ground for a moment, but it was never happy there. Always, always it heaved up into the black sky again, resuming its endless circles.

  No, the ender dragon’s words appeared in her head like someone had written them on a vast bright piece of paper. It answered her question before she even knew she’d asked it. I am never bored. Not in all the long, hard-boiled, seething history of existence. I ate my boredom when the comets were young. It tasted like death.

  It was happening! ED was talking to her! Her! Mo! Mo the Nobody! Way more than “hark” or “hail to thee”! And Fin wasn’t even here! He was off moping at the Enderdome for no good reason. Mo didn’t care one bit about the other endermen keeping their distance and making all sorts of rules about them. She cared about her twin, her loot, her friend, and her dragon.

  Well, not hers, really. No dragon could ever be anybody’s. But nobody was as fascinated by the great beast as Mo was. No one cared about it the way she did. As far as she could tell, no one else even bothered much with it, or was bothered by it. The ender dragon was like the sun in the Overworld. It was just there. It did what it did. You didn’t have to try to be nice to it or have a conversation with it or love it. That would be weird.

  ED occasionally decided the twins were worth speaking to. You never knew if today would be that day or not, though. And it was the first time it had spoken to Mo alone, without Fin. It was a very fickle dragon. And not terribly nice. But terribly interesting all the same. The most interesting thing in the world to Mo. She focused her thoughts and sent them across the cool air between the pillars toward the long black serpent.

  All hail the Great Chaos! Mo thought joyfully.

  If you must, fragment, answered the ender dragon.

  Why do you keep going in the same circles on the same island all the time forever? Why don’t you ever just…fly away? You’re so big and strong, you could go anywhere. Do anything. No one could stop you. Why don’t you go have adventures? That’s what I would do, if I were a dragon.

  ED slid one purple eye toward her as it glided lazily through the night.

  Who says I am not having an adventure? Right now? Before your miserable mortal eyes?

  Uh, I do. Me. You’re just flying in circles. That’s not an adventure. That’s barely an afternoon walk.

  You would think that, growled the dragon silently. You are small. I do not expect anything else from the likes of you.

  Hey, that’s not very nice. Mo was hurt, a little. She knew she shouldn’t be hurt by what a monster thought of her, but she couldn’t help it.

  The dragon sailed higher, its thoughts falling down on her like rain. I am not nice. So that makes a certain amount of sense, does it not? I ate nice, too, when the volcanoes had not yet learned to erupt. It was bothering me.

  Well, prove me wrong then, big guy. Tell me about your adventure.

  It has not yet begun.

  Then go out and get it!

  You understand nothing. You are stupid and small and you understand nothing. I waste my time with you. And my time is precious beyond diamonds.

  Tears sprung up in Mo’s eyes. You don’t have to be so mean to me.

  I do not have to be kind, either. No law compels me. No creature can force me.

  I wish I was a dragon! Then I could say whatever I wanted to anyone and they couldn’t do anything back because I’d be so big and black and fearsome and I could breathe fire. And if I was a dragon I wouldn’t just flap around in circles like a useless bat. She tried desperately not to cry. I would burn down anyone who hurt me! Or hurt Fin! I would fly to the Overworld and stop every bad thing from happening! I would destroy everyone who ever hurt an enderman! And I would bring my hubunits back, she didn’t add, but felt, deeply, clutching at her heart. But that was ridiculous. Her hubunits were gone. Even a dragon couldn’t get them back. She didn’t even remember them, really. If you lined up all the endermen who had perished in the Overworld, Mo wouldn’t even know who to save.

  ED swung low, its shadow startling several elder endermen, who looked up after it with blank faces. Child, you are not a dragon. You are a fragment. You are not even that. You are but a fragment of a fragment. And because you are not a dragon, it is beyond the capability of your mind to comprehend that these, right now, here, on this island, among these pillars, are the most enjoyable days of my infinite, endless life.

  I don’t understand.

  Yes. I said. You are stupid.

  I am not!

  Go away. I tire of you.

  But I want to know about your adventure! Why did you talk to me if you were just going to call me names?

  The best time in the world, the ender dragon hummed into her dark skull, is the time before the adventure starts. Before it starts, it is possible, just possible, that it could end differently than it always ends. It is quiet now. Quiet is a vacation for the mind. Soon the adventure will begin, and at the end of every adventure lies pain. At the end of every adventure, you must ask if it was ever really your adventure at all. Perhaps you were only an obstacle in someone else’s quest.

  Mo sighed. I like you better when you’re not talking in riddles just to make me feel dumb.

  ED let a ribbon of fire roll out of its mouth into the darkness. I like you better when you’re gone.

  Fine, Mo thought miserably. Whatever. It’s more use talking to Grumpo than you. You’re nothing but nasty. I brought you lunch, not that you care. Not that I care either! It’s not even for you, I just had it lying around. Whatever.

  The enderman pulled a couple of particularly ripe chorus fruits out of her pack and laid them gently on top of the pillar, where the dragon could easily reach them.

  The ender dragon hovered briefly, staring at her offering.

  Is it time for that already? it thought softly. So it must be.

  I don’t know what that means, Mo thought.

  You are an insect to me. Insects know nothing.

  I love you anyway. She always tried to tell the dragon that whenever it talked to her. So it knew, even if it ate love for breakfast and turned it into fire in its mouth.

  I have no time for this. Go away. ED’s tail vanished into the shadows, flying away from her.

  Fine, Mo thought, and kicked the silver cage with the flame burning away within. It’s just a big dumb snake. Doesn’t matter.

  But it did.

  Of course it did.

  Mo left the fruit where it lay and teleported away from the tall black pillar.

  After a long moment, the ender dragon returned and snatched them up with its long, fiery tongue. It ate them with great relish.

  Wake up, I hate you.

  Grumpo’s thoughts blinked on and off in Fin’s and Mo’s head like an alarm clock.

  Wake up, I hate you.

  Fin stretched. Endermen sleep standing up. Beds didn’t really work in the End. If you made something to lie down on, it usually exploded. Endermen didn’t need much sleep anyway. They were a bit like cats. They just napped wherever they were.

  Wake up, I hate you. Someone is approaching the ship. I hate them. Make them leave. It’s time for you to make them leave now. I hate them so much. It’s happening again. Make it stop happening.

  Mo grabbed one of the enchanted iron swords off the sword pile and poked her head up out of the hold. You couldn’t be too careful. Humans didn’t just live in the Overworld. Every once in a while one would show up here. Or so
they’d been told. It hadn’t actually happened yet, but sooner or later. It was inevitable. And when they saw ships practically groaning with treasure, humans tended to go a little crazy. And they started out crazy, as far as Mo was concerned.

  She scanned the horizon. Telos loomed there, end rods aglow and banners flying. The night beyond was calm and deep. It always was. She didn’t see anyone.

  Are you sure, Grumpo? Cutie baby Grumpo.

  Haaaaaate, hissed the shulker down below. Want to bite.

  Okay, okay. Mo stuck her head out again.

  Anybody there? she thought on a broad frequency that anyone should have been able to hear. Here, human, human, human!

  I am no human, friend of mine. But I can steal your belongings if you are in the mood for humans today. The thought opened up in her mind. Mo recognized the thinker immediately. Their only friend in the End.

  Hello, Kan!

  Grumpo growled in his box. See? He’s happening again. I hate him. I hate how he…how he happens. It’s disgusting. He comes around all the time and he does not live here and I hate him. Make him leave. Make him not happen.

  A young enderman appeared on the deck of the greyish-purple ship. He raised one long arm to say hello. In the other, he clutched a brown-checkered note block. Their friend’s most prized possession. Kan was longer and thinner than Fin, but because he was always so shy, he seemed smaller than both the twins. He had big, beautiful eyes, but he was always squinting, trying to hide them, trying to make them unnoticeable.

  Because Kan’s eyes weren’t like the wide, clear magenta-violet eyes of other endermen.

  Kan’s eyes were green.

  No one knew why. No one could remember any other enderman who had green eyes, not in all the history of the End. It bothered people. Sometimes it bothered them a lot. Nobody in Telos looked Kan in the eye if they could help it. Fin and Mo had never minded. Some people are just born different, that was all. Some people were orphans. Some people had green eyes. Mo thought they were amazing. Nothing else in the End was exactly that color. Kan’s eyes were green like the grass in the Overworld. Green like emeralds. Green like the leaves of a tree in the sun.

  Kan raised his dark hands to greet her.

  I have run away again, the green-eyed enderman announced triumphantly. My hubunits attempted to retrieve me, but they could not. I am faster. Taskmaster Owari attempted to drag me back, but she could not. I am stronger. So their training has worked, but not as they hoped. They are all the worst. Every time I think I can bear it, they prove me wrong. May I hide here with you?

  You’re always welcome, Mo thought. Come in, come in!

  That is the opposite of what I said! wailed Grumpo.

  And there was the gang. They’d always been like this: Fin and Mo and Kan, morning, noon, and night. Inseparable. The best of friends. Not that Kan’s hubunits approved much of that. Not that anyone approved much of that.

  Fin and Mo lived on the outskirts of Telos. They lived on the outskirts of everything. They had no End. To everyone else, all these things made them dangerous. To Kan, it made them exciting. Your End was everything. So Fin and Mo should have been nothing. But they weren’t nothing. They weren’t nothing, at all. What made an enderman an enderman was the End they belonged to, the End that belonged to them. And that was why no one in Telos seemed to know what to do about Fin and Mo, living off on their own in a ramshackle old ship after their hubunits failed to return from the Overworld. Most people thought them frightfully stupid. How could they be anything else when their End consisted of nothing more than two endermen and a shulker? That wasn’t an End. That was just…a load of junk. So mostly, mostly, the other endermen left the twins alone. They had trouble only when they tried to go into the city.

  But Kan knew a secret about the twins. They weren’t stupid at all. They were much better company than the enderfrags at the Enderdome or the awful Taskmaster or any of the hubs and nubs and fragments Kan had ever met. Maybe it was a twin thing. Kan didn’t know any other twins. Maybe they were all like that. Maybe it was like his green eyes. Just some freak of nature. But somehow, just the two of them were enough. Even though a two-stack was usually just barely enough to count to ten between them. Three were the minimum for a decent conversation. Except that Fin and Mo stacked, without any help from anyone. And all three of them were positively plenty.

  Kan was part of an End, all right. Just like all the other enderfrags. But they never seemed to be much a part of him. He was forever running away from home. This was the third time that week. Kan hated the way he felt when he ran away. He hated the way he felt all the way up until he got to the ship. Mean and dumb and angry and hurt, barely able to remember where he was running to or why. But all he had to do was step on board the ship and the cool cascade of endstacking started up. He could feel himself getting beautifully calm and clever. Because he was home. Not with his End, but with his friends.

  Mo had never met any other enderman who’d run away from home even once. But Kan did it every three or four days. Not that Mo judged her thin, dark friend. She understood, at least she thought she did. Mo would have hated it if she was stuck in some sour, crappy club full of people who scowled at her all the time and told her what to do. Who to be. She would have run away too. And she didn’t think anyone should be punished for running away. It was all part of the Great Chaos. Staying somewhere you hated because the rules said you had to was giving in to the Forces of Order.

  Mo led her friend down into the hold. Fin was frying chorus fruits in an iron chestplate over the torch flames. You could make a weird kind of sour purple popcorn that way. They’d never found a way to eat it safely, but it was pretty fun to watch the kernels pop. Every once in a while, Grumpo would eat a handful if you sprinkled it into his box like fish food. Thanks, he’d say. I hate it. I want to bite you. But he always ate it all up anyway. And refused to tell them how he managed to digest the stuff.

  Fin waved one long black hand at them, stuck inside the enchanted iron gauntlet that they used as a cooking mitt. The fruits popped cheerfully—Pop! Pop! CRACK!

  Kan inhaled the aroma of the chorus corn deeply. It smelled horrific. But it smelled like home.

  I like your house so much better than mine, he thought sadly. I wish I could live here with you.

  No room, Fin thought back jokingly. But the thought that he did not allow to float between their minds was: That would be great, but your hubunits would literally, actually kill us. They’d sweep through this ship like a shadow made of knives and we’d never make gross, inedible popcorn again.

  Kan settled into a corner of the ship’s guts, between a block of emerald and a pair of old boots. He put his note block between his legs. For a while, he just lay his head on top of it. He didn’t think anything. At least not out loud. Endermen could hide their thoughts if they really wanted to. It was just considered incredibly, aggressively rude. Kan didn’t cry. Endermen couldn’t, not really. But in their minds, Fin and Mo could see an image of the little white sparkles that fell from the end rods on the tips of the towers of Telos, falling all the way to the ground. They understood what that meant the same way any human knows what water falling from another human’s eyes means.

  Finally, Kan began to tap the brown thatch of his note block. Fin sighed eagerly and sat down with his long legs crossed. Mo leaned forward to hear better. No one could play a note block like Kan. Sure, the twins found them every now and again. Mostly when a human failed to kill the ender dragon (as they always did) and dropped one when they got what was coming to them. But when Fin or Mo tried to play it, all they got were short, sharp sounds that they could never fit together into a song.

  When Kan played, even the sky stopped to listen.

  His hands moved over the top of the block and music poured out. It filled the ship’s hold and spilled out onto the deck. The song was sad and bright and angry and hopeful all at
the same time. But it was quick and light, too. You couldn’t help but tap your feet to it. It made you want to dance and it made you want to hug your friends and it made you want to run out and conquer the world, or at least conquer anyone who tried to tell you what to do.

  Grumpo’s box top rose up slightly. His yellow-green nub of a head peeked through the crack. Kan stopped playing.

  Let me guess, he thought at the shulker, you hate it.

  After a long pause, the shulker answered: I don’t hate it.

  A gasp rose from all three of the endermen. They couldn’t believe it. Of course Kan was good. The best. But Grumpo hated everything. Kan often thought the shulker was like his hubunits that way.

  I just STRONGLY DISLIKE IT, the shulker snapped back, and slammed his box shut.

  Kan turned his friendly rectangular head back to his friends. He had always been the handsomest enderman in the End. Mo thought so. Fin thought so. But whenever the three of them went to Telos and passed others on the long violet streets, they always heard the grown-ups thinking about how ugly and awkward Kan was. How horrible his eyes were. How stupid and weird and even hideous he was. It made Mo so angry. Kan was beautiful! Why couldn’t they see it? If only the whole of Telos could hear him play…but hearing him play never seemed to help Kan’s family like him any better.

  I was playing that song this morning. My secondary hubunit heard me. He was so furious. He is right. He has told me time and time again to give up my block. Stop it, he screamed, stop that horrible racket! Music is one of the chief servants of Order! How dare you bring it into this house! I cannot stand one more note! Be who you were meant to be! Be one of us! Go to the Overworld! Hunt humans! Serve Chaos like your fellow enderfrags! Eat, fight, and be merry! Why must you mope and sing all the time? You are not a sad parrot! And then he tried to break my block.

  I’m sorry, thought Fin. I wonder if our hubunits would have been like that.

  But then, if I try to get away, if I try to save my block, it only gets worse! Without me, my primary and secondary hubunits, their hubunits and nubunits, their other enderfrags and all the rest of them are weaker and dimmer. They roar and chase after me and try to get me back into their End even though I do not want to be in their End at all! I do not want to go to the Overworld! I do not care one bit about the Overworld! It’s bright and horrible there! I do not want to be a warrior. I do not care about the Great Chaos!