The Voyage: An Official Minecraft Novel

by Jason Fry

  “That’s what they’re called in this part of the Overworld,” Ramoa said. “Other people have different names for them. I’ve heard them called elder guardians, fire-eyes, and sea lords. Even met a wayfarer who claimed he’d built a house out of prismarine taken from one of their monuments, down around Porto Reynes. But I never saw the house with my own eyes, so I won’t swear that one’s true.”

  “Desolation Bay, the Sea of Sorrows, Porto Reynes,” Stax repeated to himself. “So do you know what’s beyond the Sea of Sorrows? To the west, I mean? Somewhere out that way there are ice floes, and then a green country of forests and meadows, kind of like this one. That’s where I need to get back to.”

  Stax looked at Ramoa hopefully, but she shook her head.

  “I’ve only traveled in the eastern end of the Sea,” she said. “My country’s to the south of it, and it’s far safer to travel by staying east of the Shining Desert, even though it’s the long way around. But one day I’ll get there, Stax. I won’t be happy until I’ve seen the entire Overworld, from pole to pole and end to end.”

  “The entire Overworld?” Stax asked. “Is that even possible?”

  “No, it’s not,” Ramoa said. “But I’m going to do the best I can. It drives me crazy to think that when I breathe my last there will be places—so many places—I never got to. Don’t you ever think that way?”

  “No,” Stax said. “If I’m lucky enough to get back home, I’m never leaving again.”

  “Really? How can you say that? I mean, I’m sure your own country is lovely, Stax, but oh, the places I’ve seen. Lava falls in the moonlight. Mountains with roots in the seafloor and tops that lie beyond the clouds. Great rifts in the earth, with diamonds and emeralds sparkling in the walls. Islands in a blue sea, carpeted with flowers whose colors I hadn’t known existed.”

  Stax shook his head, but Ramoa was looking off into the forest, her mind far away.

  “Sometimes I wish I were a painter, so I could capture these things and share them with everyone,” she said. “But sometimes I’m glad that I’m not. There are too many beautiful things in this world that people want to keep for themselves. I like seeing things that are too big for that, and that no painting could do justice. Places where the only thing you can do is look, and promise yourself that you’ll remember.”

  * * *

  —

  An hour or so before dusk, the caravan’s leaders passed down word that the procession would stop for the night in a broad meadow between two rivers. Ramoa and Stax dropped back to the end of the line and helped herd the cattle into pens that had been hastily constructed. Campfires were blazing, and Stax smelled beef cooking and heard songs and laughter.

  “These are my favorite moments on the trail,” Ramoa said. “All the people are together, and we can look back on another day when we’ve kept each other safe.”

  Stax nodded. The last campfire he’d seen had been the raiders’, but this felt different—a group banding together for mutual protection, as opposed to a band of rogues seeking to do harm.

  The caravan’s guards, including Stax and Ramoa, were assigned to the outer perimeter, and would sleep in shifts. Before first watch, Stax excused himself and washed the salt from his hair in the river, then returned to the campfire with his hair cut short and his beard gone. His smooth chin felt strange to the touch.

  “Why, Stax, you look positively reborn,” Ramoa said.

  “Except for these rags,” Stax mumbled, suddenly embarrassed by his worn, salt-stiffened clothes and his wooden sword.

  “You can fix that when we get to Tumbles Harbor,” Ramoa said. “Everyone who does guard duty gets credit at the general store, and I’ll make sure you’re on the roster.”

  “Thanks, Ramoa,” Stax said, sitting by the fire. Beef was sizzling on spits, and he hoped he wasn’t actually drooling with anticipation.

  He looked over at Ramoa, figuring he should say something and then realizing he was badly out of practice at figuring out what that something should be.

  “So…will you be going back south after the fair?”

  “No. I’m meeting my good friend Hejira Tenboots in Tumbles Harbor. Heji’s been exploring the northern jungles, and said he wants me to see them. Hey! You should come with us, Stax.”

  Stax shook his head. “I have to get home. Or find Fouge Tempro.”

  “That’s the leader of the pirates who destroyed your house?” Ramoa asked.

  “Yes,” said Stax, and fished the compass out of his pocket. “He left this behind, or maybe one of his raiders did. I thought I could use it to get home. My father always took a compass on his journeys. But I was wrong. Now I’m thinking I can follow it to find Fouge.”

  Ramoa took the compass and examined it with what looked to Stax like a practiced eye.

  “That’s a costly thing to leave behind. You need both iron and redstone to make a compass,” she said. “What makes you think you can use it to find this Fouge?”

  “Well, it’s his, isn’t it?”

  Ramoa looked at him questioningly.

  “I’ve never used a compass before,” he admitted, knowing he sounded defensive. “I never had to. This one’s always pointing east. I figured that’s because it’s where Fouge is.”

  Ramoa shook her head. “I don’t use compasses. I prefer to navigate by the sun. But I could explain how they work, if you like.”

  “Okay.”

  “They’re oriented toward the origin point of the Overworld,” Ramoa explained. “To the place where the priests say people first came into existence. So if you’re using one to find a place, you have to know where that place is in relation to the origin point.”

  Ramoa handed the compass back to Stax, who stared down at it for a moment. So that was what his father had been telling him: the relationship between the Stonecutter estate and the origin point. It had probably been a simple formula, one his father had committed to memory. But Stax hadn’t been listening, and now the secret was lost. His father would have written it down, somewhere in his library, but those books had been burned or carried away.

  “So using one to find a person…”

  Ramoa said nothing, allowing Stax to reach the answer on his own. Stax tucked the compass back into his pocket and kicked at the ground angrily. The compass couldn’t get him home or help him reach Fouge, making it all but useless. He thought briefly about throwing it into the fire, but stopped himself. Perhaps he could trade it for something in Tumbles Harbor—new clothes, or a sword that hadn’t begun life as a tree.

  A drover brought them chunks of beef spitted on sticks. Stax took a skewer with a grateful nod and gnawed at the meat greedily, wiping at the juices running down his chin.

  “First guard shift is about to begin,” Ramoa said, after they tossed their sticks into the fire. “Come keep watch with me?”

  “All right,” Stax said, but after a moment’s hesitation—which Ramoa noticed.

  “I try to help people,” she told him, getting to her feet, and once again Stax saw a trace of some old sadness in her face. “I’d like to help you. If you’ll let me.”

  “I…sure,” Stax said. “Sorry. It’s just…well, it’s been a lot.”

  “I get it,” Ramoa said. “You probably trusted Fouge Tempro, and look how that turned out. But you’ll see I’m okay. Or at least, I think I am. Come on, Stax.”

  Stax followed her to the edge of the firelight. The sun was down and the moon was rising. Stax could see its light glittering on the waters of Desolation Bay, to the west beyond the trees. In the other direction he could see rolling hills, with mountains rising beyond them.

  “The biggest threats around here are skeletons and spiders,” Ramoa said, taking her bow off her shoulder and inspecting its length. “Anything I see, I’ll take down long before it gets to us. Your job is to make sure I see everything. And if I shoul
d miss, whack ’em with that sword of yours.”

  “With my fearsome wooden sword?” Stax asked. “What good will that do?”

  “More good than fists or harsh language,” Ramoa said. “But don’t worry. I won’t miss.”

  “So why am I here?”

  “To keep me company, for one,” Ramoa said. “So, tell me about this Fouge Tempro. But only if you want to, of course.”

  Stax found that he did want to. Standing at the edge of the firelight, he let the story spill out of him, from Fouge’s arrival to the raiders destroying his house to the harrowing ocean voyage and all he’d endured while marooned. Ramoa listened gravely, only interrupting to ask more about the drowned and Stax’s dangerous encounter with the undersea monument and its guardians.

  “Hold on a minute, Stax,” Ramoa said, as Stax was telling her about his decision to head east instead of west. “Things are going bump in the night.”

  Stax followed her gaze and spotted a slim white figure under the trees: a skeleton, holding a bow. Its head swiveled madly and Stax wondered what it was seeing and thinking. Did it know the firelight meant people? Did it hate them for being alive and walking under the sun unharmed? Or did it simply follow some ancient instinct, without thinking at all?

  “Strange creatures,” Ramoa mused, selecting an arrow from her quiver and smoothing the feathers. “If you ever get into a shoot-out with one, hold still. It feels like the wrong thing to do, particularly once the arrows start flying, but they’re excellent at tracking movement and lousy at hitting a stationary target.”

  Stax nodded, his eyes riveted on the skeleton. Ramoa nocked an arrow to her bow, sighted along the shaft, and let the arrow fly. It thudded into the skull and the skeleton froze, trying to get a fix on its attacker. Ramoa had already drawn another arrow, the motion practiced and smooth. The second shaft buried itself between the skeleton’s ribs.

  The monster saw them now and its mouth opened, though Stax heard no sound. It nocked an arrow to its own bow. Ramoa, third arrow against her chin, flicked her eyes to Stax and smiled.

  “Remember, don’t move,” she said.

  The skeleton fired its bow. Stax flinched, but the arrow went wide by a considerable margin. Before the skeleton could draw another, Ramoa fired her own arrow and the creature collapsed.

  “Any more of them out there?” she asked Stax, who was still staring at the spot where the skeleton had fallen, awed by Ramoa’s skill with a bow. At some point during the archers’ duel he’d drawn his wooden sword; he put it back in his belt, hoping Ramoa hadn’t noticed.

  “I don’t see anything,” Stax said, scanning the darkness.

  “Good,” Ramoa said. She had returned her bow to her shoulder and was walking through the grass, eyes searching ahead of her. She returned with the arrow that the skeleton had fired, brushing the dirt away from its tip. She handed it to Stax.

  “I’ve never even fired a bow,” Stax said.

  “Oh, I can teach you. The best way to keep an enemy from hurting you is to take him out from a distance. Now, you were telling me about Desolation Bay?”

  So Stax told her the rest of the story, ending with his building the little cabin and hearing the bells.

  “You should be proud of yourself,” Ramoa said. “Most people would have given up, but you never did. So what are you going to do now?”

  Stax had been thinking about that, and had his answer. “Go with the caravan to Tumbles Harbor. If it’s a big mining town, someone there may have heard of my family. Maybe even be able to help me get home.”

  Ramoa frowned. “I’ve wandered a big chunk of the Overworld, and I’ve never heard of the Stonecutters, or anything like the place you call home. So what if that doesn’t work? What then?”

  “Then I need to go after Fouge,” Stax said. “And to do that, I’ll need better equipment and supplies. I learned how to mine as a kid. Someone in Tumbles Harbor will be able to make use of me.”

  “I’ve never heard of Fouge either,” Ramoa said.

  They stood in silence for a minute, with the stars spilled out over their heads.

  “You don’t think my plan’s a good one,” Stax said, sensing Ramoa thought that but was reluctant to say it.

  “It’s not that, Stax,” Ramoa said. “It’s just that the Overworld is huge. Infinite, some say. You could spend your entire life searching for this Fouge and never find him. I don’t want you to spend years and years on a quest that will probably fail—through no fault of your own—and leave you bitter and angry.”

  “So I should just accept what this man did to me? I should just let him get away with it?”

  “He took your life away, Stax. I get that. Don’t let him take your future too.”

  Stax felt himself getting angry. Ramoa said she was trying to help, but what did she know of what he’d been through, of everything that Fouge had done to him?

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. So what should I do instead?”

  “Come with me and Heji. It’s a big world. It’s got terrible things in it—I don’t need to tell you that. But there’s so much beauty too. Let me show it to you.”

  “So I should just run away?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Well, it sure sounds like it to me. Maybe running away is your answer to a problem, but I don’t think it’s mine.”

  Now Ramoa sounded angry too. “You don’t know anything about me, Stax Stonecutter. You don’t know what I’ve been through, or how I’ve dealt with it.”

  “You’re right, I don’t,” Stax said stiffly. “And you don’t know as much as you think you do about me. So I think it’s better if we just keep watch.”

  He could feel Ramoa’s eyes on him, and wondered if she would say something else, and if he wanted her to. But after a moment Ramoa turned away, and they spent the rest of their guard duty in silence.

  A peace offering * Introduction to a busy town * An unwelcome reunion * The sights and sounds of the fair * Tumbles Harbor, considered * A visit to the mine, with free advice

  In the morning, while everyone was eating a quick breakfast, Stax left the campfire and climbed over the hill to the meadow where Ramoa had shot the skeleton. He pushed his way through the tall grass, dew soaking his pants, until he found a length of bone and a solitary arrow—all that remained of the unfortunate creature. He brought them back and silently handed them over to Ramoa in what he supposed was a peace offering.

  Ramoa smiled and took the bone, saying it would be an excellent source of bone meal for her garden back home. She suggested he keep the arrow for his own collection. But the angry words of the previous night seemed to hang between them, and they weren’t able to fall back into the easy rapport they’d had when they first met.

  The caravan traveled all day. After a heated debate, its leaders decided to stop and camp again at dusk rather than push on through the night to reach Tumbles Harbor. That night Ramoa shot a pair of spiders, their red eyes winking out after her arrows found their marks. The next morning she was the one who fetched what remained: two long, curled strands of tough silk.

  “If you ever find yourself stuck on the Sea of Sorrows again, a fishing pole would be good to have,” she said, handing them to Stax.

  She was right; the idea of eating dried kelp again, ever, made Stax want to gag. He coiled the silk up and added it to his bundle of supplies.

  Soon after the caravan moved out, the road changed from an animal track to a well-traveled thoroughfare, with the grass worn away to dirt. The caravan began to encounter other travelers—hunters carrying animal skins, and stern-faced men and women thundering by on horseback. The occasional traveler became a steady stream and the road grew rutted and pitted, with the conversation among the drovers and traders and guards turning to when they would reach Tumbles Harbor and what would happen if they were late.


  It was midmorning when the caravan came over a ridge and Stax saw the town below them. Tumbles Harbor was well-named: a crescent-shaped bay ringed with steep, irregular hills that seemed like they were about to fall into the water. The bay was filled with tall-masted ships and little boats, while houses and shops clung to the sides of the hills above them.

  Stax had never been in a town so large—the little town where the Stonecutter office was located had barely a dozen houses—and he gawped at the buildings pressing in on all sides. For their part, the townspeople seemed pleased to see the caravan, leaning out of their windows to hail old friends, offer good-natured jeers that they were late, or just wave. The line of people and animals wended its way down the hillsides, with only one spooked cow breaking away and needing to be retrieved, and the drovers cried out theatrically, showing off for the gathering crowd as they led the animals to pens in the central square. The fair was clearly about to begin; workers were straightening colorful banners, while traders were setting up their stalls.

  “That’s the caravanserai,” Ramoa said, pointing to a sprawling inn on one side of the square. “It’s where you get your wages from the caravan agent. They’ll have a bed for you tonight, and in the morning you’ll be on your own. Unless you’ve changed your mind about going with me and Heji?”

  “I don’t think so,” Stax said, though he was relieved that Ramoa had decided her earlier invitation was still good. But he sensed something else behind her words. “You’re not staying for the fair, then?”

  Ramoa shook her head. “I’m moving on. Towns aren’t really my thing, and buying a bunch of stuff would just slow me down. But I pass through town every month or two. Leave word of where you are with Brubbs, at the general store. Brubbs knows everybody. That way I’ll be able to find you.”

  Stax agreed that he would, and Ramoa smiled. They looked at each other for a moment and then shook hands, a little awkwardly. Then Ramoa turned away and threaded her way through the marketplace crowd. Stax saw a flash of her curly black hair, then a bit of her green tunic, and then she was gone.