The Voyage: An Official Minecraft Novel

by Jason Fry

  “This way,” said Stax, and picked his way down the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the narrow space. About ten blocks down there was a landing with a door and a narrow window looking into a storeroom that contained mining tools and other supplies. From there the staircase turned and descended deeper into the ground, but was no longer enclosed by a wall on the right.

  “Watch your step. Sometimes visitors get a little disoriented here,” Stax warned as Fouge picked his way down behind him.

  “Why would they—oh,” said Fouge, and one hand reached reflexively for the wall. “Aha.”

  Below them, a vast shaft plunged into the depths. Its opening was twenty blocks wide on each side, the walls rough-hewn stone, with a narrow staircase clinging to them. Down, down, down ran the steps, looking like a thin thread that had been glued to the rock. Torches had been hammered into the walls at irregular intervals, and Stax could see the speckles of their orange light down in the darkness. A rising wind made the flames gutter and their clothing ripple.

  “How deep does it go?” Fouge asked, his back against the wall.

  “All the way to bedrock—as deep as you can mine,” Stax said, then pointed up at the roof. “And that’s the bottom of the pool, believe it or not.”

  “That would make me nervous, sitting over so much nothing,” said Fouge.

  “Oh no, it’s very safe,” Stax said, taking a nonchalant step over to the edge of the staircase and peering down into the depths.

  “Shouldn’t you be careful, Mr. Stonecutter? You might take a bad step.”

  “I’m used to it,” Stax said. “This is my backyard, remember? I spent my teenage years down here, learning the family trade. Figuring out the best levels to mine, how to avoid lava and water, techniques for finding the richest veins. Those sorts of things.”

  “I’d be nervous someone might give me a push,” Fouge said, and Stax’s heart jumped at the realization that he’d turned his back on his strange visitor. He took a hasty step down, out of Fouge’s reach, but looked up to see the man still had his back pressed against the wall.

  Stax told himself he was being ridiculous. The man was rude and strange, but that didn’t make him a criminal, let alone a murderer.

  “A Stonecutter can’t be afraid of heights, Mr. Tempro,” Stax said. “Or enclosed spaces, for that matter.”

  “I can imagine,” Fouge said, taking a cautious peek below them. “So this is where the vast Stonecutter wealth comes from.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t call our wealth ‘vast,’ and we have a lot of mines besides this one,” Stax said. “But yes, this was the first one. Grandmother started the digging, mostly for coal and diorite. Then she and my father expanded operations, tunneling all the way down to bedrock and excavating the mine complex just above it. From the central shaft—that’s what we’re standing in—tunnels run on for hundreds of blocks in every direction.”

  “It must be easy to get lost,” Fouge said.

  “Oh no, it’s actually nearly impossible. We have a system, you see. The feeder tunnels are always two blocks wide, so you can tell you’re in one. Then the branch tunnels are a single block wide, and arrayed in a grid around the feeder tunnels. Like twigs around a tree limb, or limbs around a trunk. But really, it’s simpler if we go down so you can see for yourself.”

  Stax beckoned to his guest, and for a moment Fouge did look out and down, at the line of stairs snaking its way ever lower around the edges down the shaft. But then he paled and retreated to the relative safety of the wall.

  “Surely you should bring a weapon, if we’re to go down so far,” Fouge said.

  “In Grandmother’s mine?” Stax asked. “Oh no. I’ve never carried one—not when I learned to mine back in the day, and not on inspections now. And no armor either. All that weight would just be a burden, and climbing these stairs is tiring enough.”

  “And here I thought you were never reckless, Stax Stonecutter,” Fouge said, his eyes glittering. “Yet it turns out you go gallivanting through the lightless bowels of the world without so much as a little knife in your hand or a tin pot on your head to keep your skull from getting cracked.”

  Stax laughed. “The mines used to be perilous, true. Grandmother would tell tales of fighting skeletons in the dark that would make your hair stand on end. But any caverns were cleared out or sealed off long ago, and the shaft is inaccessible from the outside. Nothing can get in except through that hatch up above us. And I assure you everything is well lit, Mr. Tempro. It wouldn’t do to have evil things taking up residence on the premises, now would it?”

  “No, I imagine it wouldn’t,” Fouge said. “I thank you for the tour. It’s been most informative.”

  And then, without waiting for Stax, he headed back up the narrow staircase.

  By now Stax had grown used to his visitor’s abrupt manner, and figured it was Fouge’s fear of heights that had caused him to retreat to the world of bright sunshine and green grass. As they reentered the house, Fouge seemed lost in thought. But his eyes settled on the well-worn stone pickaxe and blunt stone sword in their frames.

  “Quite a place of honor for a pair of broken things,” he said.

  “Those were Grandmother’s. She made them that first night, in her dirt hidey-hole,” Stax explained. “They were worn almost down to nothing by the time she hit her first vein of iron, but Grandmother never threw anything away. Father put them here, to remind us of where we’d come from.”

  “Ah,” Fouge said, and ran a pale finger over the pitted edge of the blade.

  “I’m sure that seems odd to you,” Stax said. For in truth, he’d always thought the old pickaxe and sword looked shabby, and he’d thought about putting them away in a storeroom and finding something else for that space—perhaps a bright, cheery painting or an arrangement of flowers.

  “It doesn’t seem odd to me at all,” Fouge said. “In fact, I’d call them the most valuable items in the house. I can’t wait for my associates to get a look at them.”

  “Associates?” asked Stax, who was very much looking forward to being rid of Fouge.

  “Oh yes. I’ve worked with them for years. Very capable fellows,” Fouge said, striding through the living room. “They’re tough in a fight and loyal because I pay them to be. I thought I’d bring them by day after tomorrow.”

  For a moment Stax felt like he was falling. But then he got his bearings, and as they crossed the south lawn he shook his head at Fouge in what he hoped was a stern manner.

  “I have to insist that our future dealings go through the office. That will be much more efficient, for both of us.”

  “But it won’t be more efficient,” Fouge said, striding down the sandstone stairs to the boathouse and the dock. “It won’t be, at all. My business is here, with you.”

  Stax wondered what his father would say in this situation—and reluctantly decided he’d say Fouge Tempro was a difficult and demanding customer, but a customer nonetheless. But it was distasteful, to say the very least, to think of yet more strangers in his house, and another morning spoiled. Particularly if Fouge’s associates had the same deplorable lack of manners as their boss. What if they tracked in mud, or stepped on the flowers?

  “No, the day after tomorrow simply won’t do,” Stax said, stalling for time. “I’m frightfully busy, you see. There’s much to do on the estate, and I simply couldn’t clear my schedule. It’s quite impossible.”

  Fouge smiled his unpleasant smile, the one that made Stax think of a wolf that had cornered a lamb.

  “Yes, it’s obvious you’re a very busy fellow, Stax,” he said. “What’s on your overflowing to-do list, then?”

  “Well, um, there are cornflowers to be planted on the ridge,” Stax said. “And the birches need to be trimmed—they’re frightfully shaggy. Three flowerpots need to be made, and I don’t have any clay in the storeroom, so that’s a whole exped
ition right there. And, well, look right there, that plank on the deck is cracked. Needs replacing.”

  “That does seem like a lot of work,” Fouge said. “And how long will these labors take you, do you think?”

  It occurred to Stax that none of this was Fouge’s business, and he shouldn’t have discussed any of it with him. But it also occurred to him that it was too late to do anything about it.

  “Oh, that’s probably a week,” Stax said, thinking a week would surely be too long for Fouge to wait. He would have business elsewhere, and he would leave Stax in peace, and pretty soon the entire unpleasant morning would fade from memory.

  But Fouge just smiled and gave Stax a little bow.

  “A week, then. I’m looking forward to it, Stax Stonecutter.”

  Stax forced himself to smile back, and say something polite and meaningless as Fouge rearranged his baggy, ill-fitting garments and grasped the oars of his boat.

  But Stax wasn’t looking forward to it, not at all.

  A lazy morning interrupted * Terrible things * The cats’ hiding place discovered * Stax has a question

  And then something happened that’s unfortunate but understandable, or at least I think so: Stax forgot.

  Oh, he didn’t forget for the rest of that day, or the next. In fact, he was agitated much of the time on both those days. Every stray moment—and Stax, as you’ve learned, had a lot of stray moments—his thoughts returned to Fouge Tempro, and how rude he’d been, and what a nuisance his associates would doubtless prove to be, and what the nature of his proposed business might be, and whether doing business with Fouge might mean having to put up with him being a frequent visitor, and why he had to put up with visitors at all, and even thinking about all that was more than Stax could bear.

  But the next day Stax planted a drift of cornflowers on the ridge, above the allée of birches, and was pleased by the splash of blue it added to the hillside. The day after that he fixed the cracked board on the boat dock, while Coal, Lapis, and Emerald snoozed on their backs with their bellies pointed up at the sun, and it was such a nice day that Stax thought of his disagreeable visitor only three or four times. Then the day after that Stax trimmed back the shaggy birches, and hardly thought of Fouge at all. On the fourth day after Fouge’s visit, Stax couldn’t think of anything he needed to do—he’d entirely forgotten about the flowerpots and the expedition to fetch clay—and so he spent the morning fishing from the dock while the cats meowed encouragement, and then he spent the afternoon puttering in his father’s library.

  Stax was used to being reminded about his business appointments by the Stonecutter office, which would send a messenger out to the estate to prevent an important visitor from finding Stax, say, mucking out the cow pen. (No, really; that had happened not once, but twice.) But Stax had never gone to the office to warn them about Fouge, because thinking about Fouge upset him too much. So no one there thought to ask about the possibility of a return visit, or warn Stax that something bad might happen.

  Stax forgot, and the next couple of days slipped by, tranquil and torpid and free of not just trouble but even the thought of it.

  A week after Fouge’s visit, Stax was sitting by the little table on the end of the boathouse dock. He’d finished a leisurely breakfast, with a smear of honey remaining on his plate, and was skimming Optimized Mining Practices for Locating Emerald Deposits, a book from his father’s library that was even more boring than its title might suggest. Coal, Lapis, and Emerald lay in lazy S figures around him, next to the picked-over bones of fishes.

  When he saw the first boat in the distance to the south, Stax thought it was a cloud near the horizon. But this cloud kept growing, and pretty soon Stax saw it was a boat, and that there were other boats behind it—more than a dozen, in fact.

  “Why can’t that horrible man use the cove like he’s supposed to?” Stax asked the sleeping cats, who ignored him, unless a sleepy flick of Emerald’s tail counted as an answer.

  As the boats drew closer, Stax became more uneasy. He could see Fouge standing in the lead boat, his blond hair shining in the sun, and he was pretty sure the man was smiling that unsettling, predatory smile of his. The other boats were festooned with banners—black-and-purple, red-and-gold, green–and–sickly pink—and filled with rough-looking men and women, the sun flashing on swords and axes.

  Lapis was the first of the cats to awaken, and she hissed and growled low in her throat, her tail held back behind her.

  “It’ll be okay, kitties,” Stax said, getting to his feet. But he heard the doubt in his own voice, and realized he no longer believed that.

  Move, he told himself. Go! Run!

  But he couldn’t make his feet move. He felt frozen, like he was trapped in a dream where he kept trying to run but found himself stuck in place.

  The cats shot off up the stone stairs when Fouge’s boat ground against the side of the slip with a groan of wood. Fouge stepped nimbly onto the dock as the other boats bumped up against the steps. Their occupants leapt out into the shallow water, looking up at the house and laughing.

  “Stax Stonecutter,” Fouge said. “So good to see you again. I’d introduce you to my associates, but well, there’re quite a lot of them and they’re going to be very busy. And you’ll have time to get acquainted later.”

  “Now see here,” Stax managed. “This has gone quite too far. I insist that you visit our office. That’s the proper way to—”

  Fouge had been listening silently, with a slight smile on his face. As Stax lectured him, he picked up Optimized Mining Practices for Locating Emerald Deposits where it lay on the table, glanced at it, and then tossed it into the sea.

  “Hey!” Stax cried out, staring at the book where it was bobbing, facedown, in the swells. “That’s Father’s book!”

  “And now it belongs to the deep,” Fouge said. “A trophy for puffer fish, maybe. A plaything for dolphins. Who’s to say?”

  “You have no right—”

  “Look at my associates’ weapons, Stax,” Fouge said. “Gleaming iron, sharp arrowheads and shafts, and diamond honed to a razor’s edge. Those give me the right to do as I please, as long as I’m strong enough. And ultimately, in this world, that’s the only right that matters. Ladies and gentlemen, take Mr. Stonecutter in hand and make sure he has a good view.”

  “A good view? What are you going to do?”

  But Fouge was opening the boathouse door and directing some of his associates inside, while other bandits climbed the stairs to the house.

  “You’re going to rob me?” Stax demanded.

  “For starters,” Fouge said, and gestured for several raiders to follow him up the stairs. Two burly men seized Stax by each wrist and dragged him along behind them. He heard glass shattering and looked back to see a raider had bashed his sword through the boathouse’s window, while another had brought his axe down on the railing of the dock.

  “Help! Robbery! Help!” Stax yelled, but he lived alone, far from his neighbors, and so there was no one to hear and no one to help. Fouge didn’t even look back, and the raiders just laughed as they hauled him up the steps and forced him inside the house.

  Fouge’s associates had already been at work in the trophy room and the storerooms. A line of raiders passed by Stax, their arms filled with iron ingots and diamonds. They’d ripped down the map in the trophy room and carried it out in pieces, and Stax saw his grandmother’s armor departing, one diamond piece at a time.

  “Got a bottleneck here at the door, boss,” grumbled a black-bearded man. “Too many what’s goin’ out while too many others is goin’ in.”

  “So make a bigger door,” Fouge said.

  The man nodded and barked orders and the raiders smashed down the glass walls, leaving the house open on all sides. That freed them to carry out paintings and furniture and tools, like a swarm of furious ants serving their queen. Stax
watched in horror as raiders worked in pairs outside to chop down the birches and rip out the flower beds, while others broke down the fences keeping the cows and pigs and sheep penned up. Confused and frightened, the sheep raced in all directions, bumping into one another and bleating in distress as the raiders laughed and jumped at them to spook them further.

  “Leave my animals alone!” Stax yelled.

  “Or you’ll do what, little man?” asked a grinning bandit carrying away a stack of his father’s books.

  Nothing. There was nothing he could do, not against such numbers. There were too many of them, they were all heavily armed, and they were veteran warriors, while Stax had rarely lifted a blade to deal with anything that wasn’t vegetation. He sank to his knees in despair as the destruction raged around him.

  He was still there, limp with shock, when Fouge arrived half an hour later, whistling cheerfully as he yanked Stax’s grandmother’s stone pickaxe off the wall, along with its frame.

  “Stax, come with me,” he said. “You’re not going to want to miss this part.”

  When Stax said nothing, Fouge ordered two ruffians to drag him to the back door. Fouge pointed to where a pair of his bandits were standing by the diorite swimming pool, bundles of red explosives in their arms.

  “Do you know what that is, Stax?” Fouge asked.

  “TNT,” Stax said hollowly. “It’s used for mining. Or rather, it’s used by fools who don’t care about putting themselves or others in danger.”

  “Oh, we’ll be careful. Now watch.”

  Fouge nodded and the two bandits lit arrows, then fired them at the TNT. It ignited, with the detonation knocking both raiders backward. Stax raised his arms reflexively against the blast. He heard a roar of overstressed stone and then the bottom of the pool collapsed, sending water pouring through the breach into the Stonecutter mine.

  “I’ve just created the Overworld’s deepest swimming pool,” Fouge said. “Wouldn’t you say so, Stax?”

  That was when Stax caught sight of a black shape in the shadows by the now-wrecked pool. It was Coal; the explosion had frightened her out of whatever hiding place she’d found.