The Voyage: An Official Minecraft Novel

by Jason Fry

  “About two days’ ride to the southeast,” Ramoa said, and Stax’s hand closed over the compass in his pocket. “Probably five days’ walk, if you’re Heji. Six or seven for mere mortals like you and me.”

  “And is there any kind of law there?”

  Ramoa pursed her lips, thinking. “Merchants’ associations, things like that. But no, nothing that could handle a situation like this.”

  Stax nodded, leaning on the fence of his little homestead. Thoughts chased themselves through his head. The Champion, and the hope Stax had invested in him for nothing. The chests of gems and ore he’d buried in the yard. Fighting in Patannos at Hejira’s side. Huddling miserably in the bottom of a boat with Miggs. Fouge Tempro laughing as the Stonecutter estate burned.

  “If I go to Karamhés to track down Miggs and confront him, will you come with me?” he asked Ramoa.

  “I’d go even if you told me not to.”

  “Hejira? Will you come?”

  “Yes. This is a worthy path, and I wish to see you travel it. But I must ask: Do you intend to kill this Fouge Tempro, when you find him?”

  “He certainly deserves it,” Ramoa said.

  “That is not your path, and I did not ask your opinion,” Hejira said.

  “I’ll offer whatever opinion I want, Heji, whether you ask me or not. That’s always been my path, as you know perfectly well.”

  While his friends argued, Stax imagined Fouge Tempro before him, helpless and at his mercy, and felt the familiar flare of anger. But then it dissipated, and Stax just felt sick.

  “I’d rather not kill anyone,” Stax said. “But I don’t see how to stop Fouge without doing that—and I am going to stop him. That’s a promise.”

  Ramoa nodded, but then frowned.

  “Heji won’t ride a horse, though,” she said. “So we’ll get there long before he does.”

  “You are mistaken,” Hejira said. “My code allows me to ride horses.”

  “It does?” Ramoa looked surprised. “But I thought—”

  “Why would riding horses be forbidden? A horse is not a shelter, unless you desire a shelter that will pee on you and kick you during the night. I do not ride horses when we travel together because you do not like them, and I do not wish to offend you.”

  “Huh, I never knew that,” Ramoa said, looking embarrassed. She turned to Stax. “So, since that’s unexpectedly not a problem, we can buy horses from Brubbs and Xinzi. What else do you need to do before we go?”

  “Dig up some chests,” Stax said. “And go see someone I know in Tumbles Harbor who likes to make things. She’s the best enchanter in town. Or the third best, anyway.”

  * * *

  —

  It was dusk, with the sky gloomy and threatening rain when they arrived at Osk’s house on the edge of Tumbles Harbor. The cube at the gate was glowing, which made Stax smile. While Hejira and Ramoa tied up their horses and a donkey carrying the chests of gems and ore, Stax thumbed the doorbell, remembering at the last moment to step back to avoid getting walloped by the iron door as it opened.

  “Coming, coming!” yelled Osk from somewhere in the depths of her little house.

  The red-haired artificer arrived out of breath, wiping smears of redstone dust on her leather apron.

  “Well, hullo, Stax,” said Osk. “Did you see I rewired the streetlamp to come on automatically at dusk? Thanks for that idea!”

  “You’re welcome,” Stax said. “Let me introduce you to my friends. This is Hejira Tenboots and Ramoa Peranze. Heji and Ramoa, this is Osk Fikar.”

  “Hi,” said Osk. “Are you new miners? I stopped working for Mrs. Taney, Stax, did you hear that? But I’m always looking for redstone, if you run across any. I’m telling you, it’s the material of the future.”

  “Osk, can we talk?” Stax asked. “I have a project for you.”

  “Sure!” said Osk. “I like projects! Speaking of projects, Stax, you have to see the design I’ve been working on for an ore smelter.”

  “Maybe some other time, Osk. We’re kind of in a hurry.”

  “Well, that’s a nuisance,” said Osk. “What kind of project did you have in mind?”

  “I need you to make me some armor,” Stax said. “And a sword. Here, come outside—it’s simpler if I show you something.”

  Osk scowled and scrubbed a hand through her red hair. “Armor and a sword? You could get a smith for that. Xinzi could do it.”

  “I’ll pay you, of course,” Stax said, patting the donkey, who was standing stoically beneath the weight of the chests strapped to his flanks.

  “It’s not that, Stax,” Osk said. “I mean, I’d like to help you, but making armor is kind of boring, unless—”

  Stax opened one of the chests and Osk gaped at the piles of diamonds and lapis.

  “Oh,” she said quietly. “Oh wow.”

  “I need diamond armor,” said Stax. “And a sword. Enchanted so it can take a lot of punishment, and deal it out too.”

  It began to rain. Osk took no notice, seemingly hypnotized by the wealth in front of her. Hejira glanced at the sky and retreated across the street to stand beneath the eaves of a house.

  “That chest over there is full of redstone,” Stax said. “It’s yours. Can you do this for me?”

  “An entire chest of redstone?” Osk asked, looking astonished. “Yeah, I think we can work that out. Let’s get this stuff inside and get to it.”

  While Osk and Stax relieved the donkey of its burden, Ramoa cocked her head at Hejira, who was leaning against the wall across the street where it was dry.

  “What?” Hejira asked.

  “How does that not count as shelter?” she demanded.

  * * *

  —

  Osk worked through the night, fusing the diamonds into plates of armor and discussing enchantments with Stax. Ramoa studied the plans strewn across her table for a couple of hours, then excused herself to find a hot meal and a bed.

  “So are you going after that Fouge character, the one you were telling me about?” asked Osk, while Stax tried to make sense of one of the inventor’s schematics.

  “Yes,” Stax said. “Ramoa thinks she’s discovered where his lieutenant is. Hopefully that leads me to him.”

  Osk nodded. “Bet you can’t wait to see his face when you show up with an enchanted diamond sword.”

  Osk looked up from her work and frowned when she saw Stax’s face.

  “What is it, Stax? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” Stax said. “It’s just…I’m not a warrior, Osk. You know that. I never wanted to be a warrior.”

  “So why don’t you ask that scary-looking guy who came with you to do the job? He looked like he could take on a whole army himself.”

  “Heji? I did, believe me,” Stax said. “He’s got his code, and that means he can’t…oh, let’s just say it’s complicated. So I put my hope in someone else, but then that didn’t work either. It’s my path, as Heji would say. I just hope I can find my way along it.”

  “So maybe you’re not on the right path,” Osk said. “I mean, my mom was a sailor and wanted me to be one too. I did my best to please her, and never mind that I always got sick the moment we left shore. Took me a long time to figure out that was never going to work.”

  “Maybe I’m not on the right path,” Stax said. “But someone has to stop Fouge. And it looks like it’s me.”

  “Well then, we better make sure this armor does its job,” Osk said, returning to her work.

  Stax nodded and returned to examining the inventor’s sketches. He looked up after a moment, not wanting to interrupt Osk, but overcome by curiosity.

  “What’s this one, Osk?”

  Osk peered over at the schematic Stax was holding up.

  “Oh, that? I was thinking of a way to produce obsidia
n blocks without needing to have miners work up close with lava. But I’m afraid it’s not very practical.”

  Osk paused, and then her face brightened. “Or at least it isn’t yet. But there’s a good idea there, Stax. See, you start with a water source here, and…”

  Stax smiled as Osk talked excitedly about water and lava and pistons at the same time her hands were shaping the diamond into armor. He didn’t know if Osk was right that redstone would change everything, but he did wish more people were free to invent things that they thought could.

  And if there were fewer people like Fouge Tempro, perhaps one day they’d be proved right.

  Shortly after dawn, both armor and sword were finished. Yawning, Stax stood with his arms outstretched, feeling slightly foolish as Ramoa and Osk closed fasteners and cinched up straps.

  They stepped away and Stax flexed his arms, then carved a figure eight through the air with his sword. The weapon was a blur of sorcerous purple, and seemed to sing in Stax’s hand.

  “Wow,” said Ramoa. “You look…different, Stax.”

  Mildly embarrassed, Stax took off the helmet, marveling at how light it was.

  “We both know that you’re twice the fighter I could ever be,” he said. “Diamond armor doesn’t make you a warrior.”

  “That’s true,” said Ramoa. “But it sure doesn’t hurt. Let’s get moving.”

  “Can I come?” asked Osk. “I’ve never placed so many enchantments on armor before. I want to see if they all work.”

  “They’d better work,” Ramoa warned her.

  “Oh, I’m sure they will,” Osk said hastily. “But after all this, I kind of want to know how the story turns out. And…all right, I’ll admit it. If this Fouge Tempro has done all the looting and pillaging you say he has, he’s probably got a big stockpile of interesting things wherever he’s holed up. Interesting things that could never be returned to their rightful owners, and would just go to waste if left to rot there.”

  Stax exchanged a glance with Ramoa, who shrugged.

  “We’re going to ride fast and hard,” she told Osk. “Can you ride a horse?”

  “Not in battle or anything like that, but I can put my arms around a horse’s neck and hold on.”

  Stax considered the little artificer and her workshop overflowing with plans for machines she thought could change the Overworld. The plans he’d been thinking about all night, while Osk measured and tinkered and hammered.

  “You can come, Osk,” he said. “I might even have another project for you. So bring your redstone, please.”

  “How much?”

  “All of it.”

  * * *

  —

  Karamhés was a sprawling town at the intersection of a river running east-west and a caravan route running north-south. Its buildings were constructed from terra-cotta and crowned with graceful minarets. Banners flapped in a stiff wind that blew from the north, sending little funnels of dust across the marketplace.

  Stax, Ramoa, Hejira, and Osk arrived after nearly two days of riding dawn to dusk, saddle sore and caked in dust.

  “I will never be able to walk again,” Osk protested after the hostler led their horses away to be stabled. She groaned as she leaned against a wall and tried to convince her knees to bend again. “What a nuisance.”

  “You’ll be fine after a good meal and a bath,” Ramoa said, sniffing unhappily at her clothing. “Which we could all use.”

  “I too am relieved to have my feet on the ground once again,” Hejira said serenely, stretching leisurely.

  But Stax was staring at the door to the caravanserai. The idea that Miggs might be on the other side of it seemed impossible. And yet it was true; for all Stax knew, Miggs could be sitting just a few blocks away, unaware that his past was about to catch up with him.

  Stax’s hand flexed, as if around the hilt of a sword. His diamond gear was stowed, to avoid attracting attention, but retrieving it would take only a few minutes.

  Ramoa saw the gesture and immediately knew what he was thinking.

  “I’ll find out if he’s here,” she said. “Wait here for me.”

  Ramoa slipped through the front door and Stax waited nervously, imagining all the things that might go wrong. But a few minutes later, Ramoa reappeared to say that while Miggs wasn’t there, he’d been around the night before, and the innkeeper expected him back again come evening.

  That gave them time to bathe and rest in the caravanserai’s rooms, though Hejira contented himself with a dip in the horse trough, with Stax tipping a very confused stable boy so he wouldn’t ask questions.

  Hejira also took his evening meal outside, telling a nervous Stax that if Miggs fled, he’d be in position to intercept him. That left Osk, Ramoa, and Stax, who took a corner table with a view of the inn’s common room. Ramoa and Osk flanked Stax, who sat in the recesses of a booth, his diamond armor covered by a dark travel cloak.

  The inn’s food was good—perfectly prepared mutton and a beetroot soup—but Stax could hardly taste it and chewed mechanically, his eyes fixed on the door. Osk was chattering away about some invention that would revolutionize something, while Ramoa quizzed her about the details with what sounded like genuine interest, but Stax barely heard them. Every time the door opened, Stax’s brain tried frantically to make the new arrival into Miggs, never mind if the person was much shorter, had different-colored hair (or no hair at all), or was another gender entirely.

  When the actual Miggs walked inside, however, Stax recognized him instantly, remembering the thick black beard, broad shoulders, and muscled arms. And, just in case Stax had had any doubts, he was wearing Stax’s shirt—the yellow one with the red dragons.

  “Is that…” Ramoa began, and Stax nodded.

  “Where?” demanded Osk, getting to her feet with a scrape of her chair across the floor that Stax was pretty sure could be heard in Tumbles Harbor. He grabbed the artificer’s arm and hauled her back into her seat.

  Miggs glanced around, his eyes passing over Stax’s booth with no apparent recognition, and took a table by himself in the middle of the room.

  Stax got to his feet, annoyed that his hands were trembling faintly.

  Breathe out, he told himself. Like you’re firing a bow.

  “I don’t believe it,” Ramoa said, and Stax felt a surge of annoyance. Had she thought he’d just sit there while Miggs had a leisurely dinner and left?

  “Heji’s broken his code,” she added, and Stax saw that Hejira had entered the inn and was standing near the door. He caught Stax’s eye and nodded once.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Ramoa told Stax, standing up. Osk scrambled to her feet as well.

  Stax felt like he was floating as he crossed the room to stand at Miggs’s table.

  “Hello, Miggs,” he said, and drew his cloak back so the raider could see his armor and his hand on his hip, next to his diamond sword. “It’s been a long time.”

  Miggs’s eyes went to the sword first, and then up the glittering armor to Stax’s face. Stax smiled as he saw the moment when the raider remembered.

  “Yer that kid,” he said. “From across the water, way to the west.”

  “I’m that kid,” Stax said. “I bet you thought you’d never see me again.”

  “I didn’t.” It annoyed Stax that Miggs was calm, while his own knees kept knocking. “Yer the fancy boy, the one with the weird name. No, two weird names. Stax, that’s it. Stax Stonecutter. Hmm. May as well have a seat. And yer friends too.”

  And Miggs pulled out the chair next to him with one foot.

  Not quite believing it, Stax sat. After a moment, Ramoa and Osk did the same. Hejira came and stood at the table, looking down at them.

  “So what do yeh want, Stax Stonecutter?” Miggs asked. “Revenge? I’m guessin’ that’s it, what with three friends for backup and that pig-s
ticker on yer belt. Well, if that’s what yeh want, here I am.”

  “I want information, for starters. Where’s Fouge Tempro?”

  Miggs made a sound that was something between a laugh and a snort of disgust.

  “Yeh want my advice, kid? Yer lucky to be alive, and—”

  “I don’t want your advice,” Stax said. “Let’s try this again. Where’s Fouge Tempro?”

  Miggs studied Stax’s face and nodded. Was that respect Stax saw in the raider’s eyes?

  “Yer not the same kid yeh were then, though, back when yeh were huddled in the bottom of a boat retchin’ and spittin’,” Miggs said. “Yeh’ve changed.”

  “Yeah, a lot’s happened to me. Where’s Fouge?”

  Miggs sighed. “East of here, upriver. In a fort atop a mountain.”

  “Which mountain?”

  “Yeh’ll know it when yeh see it.”

  Ramoa shook her head, glaring at Miggs. “At least make up a good story,” she said.

  “It’s true,” Miggs said. “It’s unmistakable. Can’t miss it.”

  Stax fished the compass out of his pocket and found it pointing due east.

  “And the rest of your gang?” he asked Miggs.

  “They don’t matter. Brigands, sellswords, pirates. Who knows where that lot goes when a job’s done.”

  “I’m lucky I found you, then,” Stax said.

  “I suppose yeh are. So now what happens? Here I am. Yeh gonna draw that sword, Stax?”

  Stax considered it. On the one hand, he was sure Miggs had committed any number of other crimes. But on the other, he had been the only one of Fouge’s crew to treat Stax with a bit of kindness, however grudgingly offered. And that suggested there was something in the man that might be worth preserving.

  Stax looked at Ramoa, and Osk, and then up at Hejira.

  “What do you think, Hejira?” he asked. “Oh, come on. You’re inside an inn, and that’s definitely a shelter. I’ll leave it up to you.”

  Hejira’s eyes narrowed and he studied Miggs for a moment.

  “Let him go,” he said. “But only so he can find a different path, one that does not hurt others. I travel many lands, Miggs, and I have eyes and ears wherever I go. If you leave your new path, I will know. And I will find you.”